Happy New Year! [Updated]

I don’t do lists or resolutions, and have nothing much to say about turning the page on 2013, apart from an observation I have made many times before: 2013 was a pretty lousy year for the world and the nation, but a great year for me and my family. I hope it was for yours, too.

That happens a lot: most of what is good in our lives takes place in the private sphere, while most that goes haywire is in the public sphere. Which is one of the reasons why I have long been puzzled by our collective insistence on moving more and more emphasis, power, money, time and choice out of the private realm, and into the public. In general, when we do that, we are trading success for failure and happiness for frustration, and contributing to the growing disgruntlement of the population. Who knows? Maybe the rising strain of libertarianism in our political life will reverse that trend in 2014. If so, it will be a happy new year, indeed.

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Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

ONE MORE THING: Another problem with the public realm–it is $17 trillion in debt, at the federal level alone. Michael Ramirez recasts the traditional transition from the doddering old year to the infant new year:

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