Year 2001 in Review   Predictions for 2002

What a year this has been. We have made an effort to understand the true meaning of the events of this past year so we can form some conclusions and have a base on which to project how 2002 will play out for us and our loved ones. 

Below are 35 of the unforeseen traumatic national and world events that transpired this year which remain indelibly etched in our memories as we complete this most amazing year and begin to look ahead to and plan for a new year in 2002. We have also ventured to make 27  predictions of things to come in the new year. 

1/4 Acting for the first of what will be 11 times this year to counter the nation's deepening recession, Federal Reserve policymakers reduce their target for overnight interest rates by a half-percentage point from 6% to 5.5%. It reaches 1.75% in December, the lowest level in 40 years. 

1/21 After the closest presidential election in history, George W. Bush is sworn in as America’s 43rd president amidst the controversy surrounding the electoral college and alleged voting irregularities and recounts in the state of Florida and the sudden intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court to determine Bush wins Florida by 500 votes. Bush enters office with his party in control of all three governing bodies; the Presidency, the House and the Senate. Lacking a clear voting mandate (having lost the popular vote by 700,000 votes), regardless President Bush pushes forward with his programs promised to voters during the election; reduction of the U.S. role in policing world affairs, building a defensive missile shield, reducing restrictions on business efficiencies caused by excessive environmental laws, drilling for oil in Alaska to reduce dependency on foreign oil imports, increased funding for military programs including salaries, accountability in education, and $1.6 trillion in federal tax reductions to further stimulate the economy. 

2/11 The submarine U.S.S. Greeneville, captained by Commander Scott Waddle struck a Japanese training vessel the Ehime Maru 40 miles south of Pearl Harbor, Oahu while demonstrating a high speed vertical surfacing procedure with a number of civilians on board. Nine passengers of the struck vessel drown. The accident strains Japanese American relations. Full personal accountability by Commander Waddle and apologies by the U.S Navy and federal government directly to the families of the people lost are not enough to deflect the painful end to the career of one of our outstanding young Naval officers who was to receive an official reprimand and an honorable discharge two months later.

3/19 Ignoring international pleas to desist (including from the UN and Iran), ancient statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan are blasted by the Taliban. One giant statue of Buddha towering 53 meters (175 ft) hewn into a cliff about 1500 years ago in the central Afghanistan province of Bamiyan was destroyed. The Taliban, a movement determined to create a pure Islamic state, announced in February they will destroy all statues in the country despite international appeals to save Afghanistan's rich cultural past. Bamiyan's Buddhas were part of a rich cultural heritage dating back nearly 2,000 years and were considered among the finest examples of Greco-Indian art. 

3/20 The Dow drops under 9,000 (down from 11,000 one month earlier). Although not reported officially for another 6 months, people on the street sense the economy has dipped into recession with negative growth with mounting numbers of jobs being lost. Stock market takes big one day hit. 

3/28 Christie Todd Whitman, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, confirms that the U.S. will not implement the Kyoto Protocol. "We have no interest in implementing that treaty," Whitman told reporters. Whitman's comments come two days after the European Union wrote to U.S. President George W. Bush, seeking his commitment to the climate change treaty. 

4/1 A U.S. reconnaissance turboprop aircraft flying in international airspace over the ocean some 50 miles southeast of China's Hainan Island collides with a Chinese jet fighter that had been tracking its movements too closely. The U.S. aircraft makes an emergency landing while the Chinese jet crashes and its pilot is lost at sea. The plane and its crew of 12 are held for two weeks resulting in tense negotiations to obtain their release and the return of the surveillance plane in pieces. 

5/1 Remarks by the President to students and faculty at National Defense University inform the world of our intent to build a missile defense system requiring us to abrogate the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks SALT II Nuclear Arms treaty in place since 1972 which prohibits building of a defensive missile shield. China and Russia react negatively with comments it will fuel a new missile arms race. 

5/16 The scheduled execution of Timothy McVeigh who masterminded the bombing of the Federal Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma on April 19, 1995 killing 168 killed people was put on stay when it was discovered the FBI had withheld some 3000 documents from the defense. New Attorney General Ashcroft orders a 30 day stay of the planned execution until the defense could process the documents. The execution is rescheduled to the evening of 6/11, providing a small measure of compensation to those families who lost loved ones in the bombing. McVeigh is the first person executed by the Federal government in 38 years.

5/24 After being snubbed by the new administration by not being included in a ceremony awarding a national teaching award in his home state of Vermont, Senator James Jeffords announces a change of his party affiliation from Republican to Independent, throwing the majority membership and the operational control of the U.S. Senate and all of its subcommittees to the Democratic party. 

5/28 The Tax Relief Act is passed. Amidst rosy economic projections for continuing huge budget surpluses, a package of $1.35 trillion in federal tax cuts for the next ten years is passed and signed into law by President Bush. There is much discussion and expectations of having sufficient surplus funds available to extend Medicare to; include prescription drugs for elders, continue the national debt reductions that had commenced under the Clinton Administration, and shore up Social Security and Medicare. Three months later the recession will eliminate the entire $120 billion budget surplus forecast just three months earlier, and take $40 billion out of the $160 billion surplus payments into the social security system.  

5/29 A Manhattan federal court jury returns a guilty verdict on all 302 counts against four of the individuals involved in the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. convicted of conspiring with Usama Bin Laden and 17 other co-defendants to kill American nationals outside of the United States. On August 7, 1998, a bomb was detonated near the United States Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. It killed 212 people, twelve of which were Americans and 31 of which were Foreign Service Nationals. Another 4,650 people were wounded. Both Embassies sustained massive structural damage as a result of the blasts. Over four months later, on October 18, 2001, the four individuals will be sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of release. The investigation will continue as 13 of the 22 defendants in this matter, including Usama Bin Laden, remain as fugitives.

6/1 A power crisis hits California as rolling electrical brownouts start in California with the summer heat. Due to drought in the Pacific Northwest, the biggest outside supplier to California, there is insufficient electrical power available to meet the peak needs of home and business consumers. Consumers are shocked as natural gas prices soar 10 times in the new deregulated environment. Texas based Enron and other out of state based energy suppliers feast on the high profits and misfortunes of California consumers implementing a flawed deregulation plan. The power crisis that hit California results in the bankruptcy of the state's largest utility, PG&E's Pacific Gas & Electric unit. The state is forced into signing long term contracts for power at exorbitant prices which along with the Silicon Valley dot.com recession eliminate the $11 billion state surplus requiring the state to look for new sources of income. California pleas for intervention by the federal government to set maximums on energy prices are ignored by the new administration believing Californians have hurt themselves through NIMBY (not in my back yard) failure to build new power plants. Plans to build 40 new generating plants are expedited as the process for approval for a new plant is shortened from 4 years to 4 months. Gasoline prices soar to $2.45 per gallon for premium grade. 

6/3 20 Israeli teen-agers are killed in a suicide bomb attack on a nightclub, the first of an escalating series of bombing by PLO terrorists that will result in deaths of hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians before years end. Suicide bombings by Palestinian militants and repeated responsive forays by Israeli forces into Palestinian communities create a climate of distrust and escalation of war that severely damages hoped for peace prospects. 

6/21 A Texas woman is charged with murder in the drowning deaths of her five children. Despite her being treated for severe post-partum depression for the previous two years and clearly not mentally competent to stand trial, a Texas Grand Jury Indicts the mother on capital murder charges in July,

6/30 Vice President Dick Cheney enters a hospital in Washington to have a small defibrillator implanted to monitor and electronically slow abnormal heart rhythms. Cheney, 60, has a 23-year history of heart problems, including four heart attacks and a quadruple bypass 10 years earlier. The surgical procedure is the latest in a series of recent efforts by the vice president's Washington-based team of doctors to stem the effects of his longstanding coronary artery disease. He returns to work and a full schedule the following week.

7/10 Videos are shown on television for the first time of Taliban atrocities against women in Afghanistan including being herded by Taliban morality police whipping their legs with sticks for failure to cover completely, and a woman executed in a public stadium for alleged infidelities, 

8/1 President Bush starts a one month “working” vacation on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Photo ops showing him chain sawing wood (Ronald Reagan style) are interspersed with weekly side trips around the country. 

8/5 Two American women and 22 other aid workers are arrested on charges of spreading Christianity in Islamic Afghanistan.

8/10 In a nationally televised address from his ranch, President Bush announces he will allow federal funding of research using existing stem cell lines only. There are about 60 existing stem cell lines in various research facilities -- cell lines that have already been derived from human embryos. The president stops short of allowing federal funding for research using stem cells derived from frozen embryos, about 100,000 of which exist at fertility labs across the country. He made the difficult decision with great care after much study of the issues on all sides. Bush will allow federal funding for research on these 60 lines of embryonic stem cells. These lines of cells have the ability to regenerate themselves indefinitely but not all have been approved by the National Institutes of Health which sets federal standards for research. Scientists and advocacy groups view embryonic stem cell research as perhaps the best hope for finding cures for debilitating diseases. Embryonic stem cells have the potential to turn into any other kind of cell in the body and have been looked to as possible treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Type I diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.. Other groups, such as anti-abortion activists, consider stem cell research the taking of a human life because embryos must be destroyed to harvest the stem cells. Most of us do not understand all the principles behind the arguments on all sides, the scientific and medical communities on one side and the pro-life forces on the other.

9/11 More than 3,000 people are killed as 19 suicide hijackers fly two planes into the World Trade Center and a third one into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashes into a field south of Pittsburgh after passengers decide to resist. 

9/13 During a discussion about whether this crisis might bring revival to America, Jerry Falwell says "God may have allowed what the nation deserved because of moral decay and he says Americans should have an attitude of repentance before God and ask for God's protection. He specifically lists the ACLU, abortionists, feminists, gays, and the “People For the American Way” as sharing in the blame". Pat Robertson responds with agreement.

9/18 On national television, President Bush declares a war on international terrorism and those who assist them. Warnings of the dangers of fighting in Afghanistan’s rugged mountainous terrain, the pending winter, predictions of widespread famine, land mines, U.S. Stinger surface to air missiles left over from the war against the Soviets, historical failures of others in the area including the British and Russians, and threats of widespread worldwide Jihad uprisings by Islam followers, are all put aside. President Bush exerts outstanding leadership and asks for and gets the full support of the country and the world coalition behind him on his war on terrorism. 

10/5 At home in the new San Francisco baseball park, the Giants’ Bobby Bonds hits his 71st and 72nd home runs to break the record for the most home runs in one season. 

10/7 The United States and its allies launch the first phase of a sustained military campaign aimed at hard targets within Afghanistan. The goals of this effort are clear: to wrest the Afghan people from the violent and oppressive hands of the Taliban government and to bring to justice those who took the lives of thousands of our fellow citizens. The Taliban government had been warned; and the warnings were not heeded. The actions taken by the family of nations are a just and essential step in ridding the world of the global threat of terrorism and bringing to justice those who plot the destruction of peaceful and innocent people. Over the next two months, American air power, sophisticated, flexible, powerful, controlled, accurate and deadly, destroys Taliban communication systems. The U.S. military and allied Afghan forces mount coordinated military strategies designed to topple the Taliban regime and pursue members of the al-Qaida terrorist network. Northern Alliance forces sweep south and Kabul and then Kandahar fall. The al-Qaida forces flee to the Tora Bora region and hide out in caves until routed by furious bombing attacks with precision munitions guided by U.S. special forces on the ground. 

10/13 Anthrax tainted letters kill 5 people, disrupt mail in some areas, and force temporary evacuation of important federal buildings in Washington. Letters laden with anthrax spores sent to Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) pass through the Trenton mail facility on Oct. 9. 7 more Anthrax cases are confirmed in the following weeks.

11/12 An American Airlines Airbus 300 crashes on Long Island shortly after takeoff when the vertical stabilizer tail fin falls off presumably when air turbulence from a 747 in front was encountered. 260 plunge to their death. No linkage to any terrorist activity can be confirmed.

11/26 The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research announces that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March, 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology and signals the end of the longest and most prosperous economic boom in this country’s history in terms of total wealth creation at all levels of the society, and in terms of stock market valuations which increased 400% from 3000 in 1993 to 12,000 in March of 2000 before falling 33% back to 8000 after 9-11 and then rebounding 25% to its current 10,000 level. This volatility is certain to continue making stocks investing a tricky pastime for Americans looking to retire. 

12/2 Energy trading conglomerate Enron Corporation announces it is voluntarily entering into Chapter 11. The stock in 2000 went from $30 to $90 on bullish forecasting, mythical accounting techniques, and a spate of frenzied bottom feeding at the expense of California electricity consumers. The stock entered 2001 at $83 per share and was $0 by yearend 2001 leaving investors, employees and bond holders facing massive financial losses. While employees’ stock was required to remain in the company stock plan, top executives who saw the donnybrook coming were allowed to sell out their holdings near the top before word of the pending collapse reached the employees and Wall St. WebVan and Excite@Home close their doors following the failures of over 700 former high flying “dot.com” companies in 2000 and 2001.

12/13 The federal government announces 1.8 million jobs have been eliminated in the previous 12 months, half of them after 9-11, and unemployment bumps to 6.5%. 

12/14 Oakland Athletics slugger Jason Giambi signs a 7 year contract with the New York Yankees for $120 million.

12/15 Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and 31 more Afghan elders and tribal representatives assemble in Kabul for the first meeting of an interim six month council preliminary to establishment of a permanent government. Two women serve on the interim governing council. International support is solicited by the new Afghan council for a plan to reconstruct the Buddha statues. The director of the Kabul Museum of Art reveals that he personally covered up with water color paint all animals represented on valuable paintings stored and displayed in the Kabul Museum to prevent them from being destroyed by the Taliban. A simple sponge brush restores the art to its original state. 

12/20 The World Food Program announces 165 tons of wheat have been successfully delivered to Afghanistan in the previous four months, averting a feared massive famine during the winter months. 

12/28 OPEC announces it will cut worldwide oil production 6% to increase oil prices which peaked at $30 per barrel in July of 2001 but dropped to $17 per barrel only six months later. Gasoline prices drop 40% from summer highs to $1.50. Natural gas prices drop allowing rebates on monthly electrical bills in California. Emergency plans to build more generation plants in California are put on hold as sufficient supplies of electrical power are available due to increased supplies from outside California, reduced usage from the recession and continued personal conservation programs. 

12/31 The DJIA market ends the year at 10,040, 766 points, or 7.1 percent, below where it began the year. The Nasdaq Composite Index finishes Monday’s session with a 37 point loss, bringing its total loss for the year to 521 points, or 21 percent. The tech-rich index lost $700 billion in market capitalization during the year. 2001 was the U.S. stock market’s second-straight down year. The last time the market chalked up back-to-back annual declines was in 1973 and 1974. And the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index, one of the broadest gauges of the U.S. stock market, closed the year down 172 points, or 13 percent — its worst performance since 1974. In that year, the S&P fell almost 30 percent. Bulls are forecasting a quick end to the recession and the resumption of rapid growth of the economy, profits, and profits from investments in stocks. Bears remain more cautious, expecting more layoffs in the 1st quarter and a much slower recovery. Year end gains of 25% in the DJIA indicate Wall St. has already built in the expected 2002 recovery into current stock pricing, taking away much of the upward leverage if the economy actually does sky rocket back into orbit in 2002.

Jon and Karen with their One Voice 9-11 Healing Totem sculpture donated to the Bronx Zoo in New York City on 9-5-2002.