As 2009 draws to a close, sighs of relief will be heard.  Many of us will finally exhale - if only for a minute. “Whew! Did we really survive this?”

But then…2010 is just around the bend.  And if it’s anything like the last couple of years, uh-oh, we’re in for quite a ride.

Even for those of us gifted with a vital faith, life can still be challenging.  That’s just the way it is in a fallen world, and is likely to remain so, as we live through a historic period of economic uncertainty and the ever-present threats from terrorist mischief.

Well, I can’t take all the fear and worry away but, as 2009 ends, let me share a somewhat hopeful perspective on where we are and where we may be moving.  No promises from me, mind you.  But I share some realistically hopeful thoughts that seem so out of character with the kind of gloom constantly radiating from today’s media outlets.

Gregg Easterbrook, a “big thinker” and author of the new book Sonic Boom, is worth reading as he ponders some of the positives of globalization.  Easterbrook’s a smart man who is hardly alone in his own hopeful outlook. World-class management consulting firms, like McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group, have laboriously documented how far globalization still has to go, and hardly an issue of Wired magazine doesn’t celebrate our increasingly globalized, interconnected future, notwithstanding terrorism and the worldwide financial meltdown of the past two years.

Mr. Easterbrook begins “Sonic Boom” with a portrait of Shenzhen, China—a city that did not exist 30 years ago but that now has nine million inhabitants. Paris and London took generations to build. The glittering new cities of postwar America (think of Atlanta and Los Angeles) took half a century to reach their current glory. But Shenzhen has arisen from scratch during the lifetime of its current inhabitants, a testament to the sonic qualities of its commercial dynamism.

But Mr. Easterbrook doesn’t cite the Shenzhen example just to join the chorus of the many who praise the rise of China and bemoan the fall of the US. No, he wants to show how a rapid reconfiguration of resources is benefiting all sorts of unexpected people and places. He and I would both agree that unless our country’s bigger and bigger government kills, regulates to death, or taxes excessively, our own intellectual capital (brains) and venture capital (sensible risk taking) will continue to thrive in an increasingly globalized world –whatever China and India do. He quotes from the American Academy of Sciences that 85% of economic growth is now produced by new ideas. He also notes that in 2007 companies that were founded by entrepreneurs backed by venture capitalists provided a whopping 10.4 million new American jobs and generated $2.3 trillion in revenues (a sum equal to France’s GDP).

And for those of us who live in the Heartland of America  - like Indiana -  the home of America’s supposedly dying manufacturing industry, Easterbrook has some particularly encouraging thoughts. In fact, his research shows that US manufacturing companies have done a much better job of improving their productivity than even the most glamorous of service companies. For instance, the average car bought today costs 6% less than the average car bought a decade ago - yet is stuffed full of clever new gadgets. America produces more steel today than it did 30 years ago, and this despite many shuttered plants and slimmed-down work force.  Don’t miss the lesson: ideas matter, even in manufacturing; learning and doing well in rigorous educational programs are keys to America’s success in the global race ahead.

Manufacturers have also been much better at responding to the pressures of globalization. Haier, a Chinese domestic-appliance maker that had such a bad record for quality a generation ago that the Chinese used its washing machines to store coal, is now a world-class company with its American headquarters in Camden, S.C.   Good for Haier and China.  But don’t be surprised by the fact that American business giant General Electric sells 40% of the locomotives that it makes in Erie, PA, to China.

Mr. Easterbrook is right: we should try to see the hand of progress in what can, all-to-often, seem like just simple turmoil. Sixty million Americans may continue to change jobs each year, but most of the time the number of jobs available expands rather than contracts. And the daily news that our media feeds us may be fixated on death and disaster, but the chances that the average person will meet a violent death are lower today than they have ever been. “Noxious nervousness,” as Gregg Easterbrook calls the secular spirit of our time, may be with us for a long time to come.  But we should look for the big trends behind the daily headlines and take a little more time to celebrate the coming new year.

As for the economic crisis that has just nearly ruined us, Mr. Easterbrook reminds us, in one of the many insights that enliven Sonic Boom, that capitalism is the only economic system in history that is rendered stronger by its own instability.  Adversity is, you must realize, a very good teacher.  And it builds character, too.

So, cheer up.  Keep your chin up.  And, after all is said and done, have a Happy New Year -  and have faith.

The charts above are from the Bespoke Investment Group (http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/bespoke/), and were published at their website on December 10, 2009.

The two charts tell a very troubling story for any of us saving for retirement.

Like many others I admire, I try to do what I can about what I can. I recommend similar behavior to all of my friends and readers. If at all possible, try to save for retirement. Live within your means. Get the sleep you need. Eat appropriate stuff, but not too much. Still, even when doing the best you can, there will remain much that is outside your control.

The charts above make me anxious about what is outside my control, since the US Government spent, in November 2009, $1.90 for every dollar it took in.

Holy Cow!

But the month earlier, in October, the government spent $2.30 for every dollar it took in. So, to some, especially some in government, I guess things are improving. Here we are only two months into our government’s 2010 fiscal year, and we have already added well over $200 billion to the national debt for the year.  Yikes!  After all, last year, our deficit was “only” $1.4 trillion for the entire year.

Do our leaders really thing that as a nation other countries will continue to lend to us money at rates and in amounts that we can afford if we don’t get our manic spending under control?

Folks, this can’t go on. The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has probably already ended. But we can’t have much of a sustained recovery if our leaders don’t stop themselves from spending us all into financial tragedy.

This time of year I think of Ebenezer Scrooge’s meeting with the third spirit of the night, the “Ghost of Christmas Future.” Remember? Scroogge dreads this encounter more than the other two and wonders whether what he is about to see is what will happen or only what might happen, if he does not change his behavior. Well, this Christmas, we may be in the company of the same spirit; and like Scrooge, I hope the charts above are but the shape of things that only might be.

Investment markets have risen sharply since early March, but without some improvement on the employment front, it’s hard to see how they might continue to rise.  The American economy depends enormously (about 70%) on consumers; and if they are out of work or fearing they soon will be, spending stops.  So, the Labor Department news on Friday, December 4th, that nonfarm jobs - which are most of the jobs in America these days - decreased by (only) 11,000 in November was great news.  This is the smallest monthly job decline since The Great Recession began in 2007.

Friends at Chart of the Day have a picture “worth a thousand words” about these recently-released unemployment data. They put this employment decline into perspective by comparing job losses during the current Great Recession (solid red line) to that of the last recession (dashed gold line) and the average recession from 1950-2006 (dashed blue line). As today’s chart illustrates, the current job market has suffered losses that are more than triple as much as what occurs at the lows of the average recession/job loss cycle.  And those unemployment wounds will take much longer to heal.

Much longer.

Yet, as bad as the overall numbers have been, the November employment report offers a ray of light in the dark skies that cover the labor market.  For sure, it’s weak, but it’s a little brighter.  And once it’s starts to get brighter, it’s likely to get brighter still.

And the internals of the report look good, too.  In it, we learn there was a significance uptick of 52,000 jobs in temporary employment, usually a precursor to a coming pick-up in permanent workers.

But the major headline is the big news- nonfarm payrolls were down just 11,000 (when experts were expecting 125,000 more people would be out of work) was a delightful surprize, as was the substantially-improved revisions to earlier months — October (from -190,000 to -111,000) and September (from -219,000 to -139,000).

And just in case you missed it, the unemployment rate dropped a bit, too:  to 10.0% from 10.2%.

While this is all good news and shows that the US economy is on the mend, the “real” unemployment rate (which includes discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons), fell, too:  from 17.5% to 17.2%.

Things are moving in a healthier direction, but, sadly, roughly 1 out of every 6 people in the civilian labor force is still either unemployed or underemployed.

Finding a new job isn’t easy, either.  The AVERAGE time people are spending today unemployed ROSE from 26.9 weeks to 28.5 weeks.  In turn, 38.3% of unemployed workers have been out of work 27 weeks or longer versus 35.6% in October.

While things are getting better — and, remember, unemployment is a trailing economic statistic that improves only after the economy begins to heal — we’ve got a long way to go.  With as much damage inflicted on our troubled nation as has occurred, it will be quite a while before the economic skies seem clear once again.