The world seemed an unstable place in 2008

In the run-up to the 2008 elections in the United States, the world seemed an unstable place. The world economy seemed on the edge of at least recession, if not worse. Rogue nations, such as North Korea, Iran, and Syria were collaborating on nuclear weapon development. The elections in the United States seemed certain to place a pacifist, leftist government in power. It would a government that would be unwilling to respond to the aggressive, Islamist threat. At the same time, China seemed to increasingly to be testing the United States to see if China might be able to be more active on the world scene and succeed in applying force to expand their power without an American response. South Korea and Taiwan had strong elements that seemed ready to allow the Chinese and North Koreans to succeed with provocative acts. How would the year end?

The very fabric of the country seemed to be fragile

In the early 21st Century, the forces on the "Left" had been so successful in promulgating their message that there was widespread sympathy for radical change. Only a relatively short time before, the surface appearance was that the United States, and even Britain, were heading in a more Conservative direction. All that changed after the terrorist attacks, starting with the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. People desperately wanted the Muslim world to back off their threat and imagined that if they only stopped fighting, that the conflict would evaporate. Sadly, it was not to be, but that hope is what drove the United States leftward in the aftermath of "September 11th".

Technological conveniences

The mid-21st Century has many technological conveniences. My favorite, which would be the envy of denizens of the early 21st Century and before, is the ability of cars to stop next to a parking place and "step over into the place". Eliminating jockeying a car, back and forth, into a parking place is such an obvious step that you might wonder why having such a feature took so long. Apparently, there was too much complication for such a feature to be economically viable a rather short distance back in time. Another major step forward was eliminating gasoline as the energy source. A variant of hydrogen fuel cells essentially made the oil in the ground in the Middle East and Venezuela close to worthless. For relatively clean power, not without complications, water is turned into hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity from newer generation nuclear power plants. Why was there such a delay in using a nuclear-heated thermocouple to generate electricity?

Concern about Barack Obama

By early 2008, analysts became increasingly concerned about the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. By this time, they had learned something about his relationship to a Lebanese businessman with ties to the Middle East and to wealthy Muslims in the United Kingdom. There was evidence to suggest that he had been subsidized by those sources since at least 1995. There was precedent for this sort of thing, as the buzz was that the Clintons had been subsidized by the Red Chinese since the early 1970's. That had continued until the scrutiny had become to strong, by the latter 1990's. The question was: "where were Barack Obama's true loyalties?" The observers at the time could only watch as events unfolded.

By early 2008, the world was descending into chaos

By early 2008, the situation seemed quite desperate and seemed bound for chaos. We saw increasing numbers of freelance terrorists, striking for some obscure or for some mainstream cause. The world economy seemed on the brink. Leftist governments were springing around the globe, including the United States. The main progressive candidates spoke of implementing economic policies that had proved disastrous in 1930. They wanted to raise taxes and erect trade barriers (so they said). Crimes committed by delusional people looked little different from those committed by extremists. A deranged gunman killed people at Northern Illinois University. A short time later, a Palestinian gunman killed students at a seminary in Israel.

The situation in the early 2000's got more and more outrageous

The leftist media that operated internationally had succeeded in discrediting fighting Islamic extremism and had discredited business and free enterprise in general. In the American election of 2008, the Democratic candidates were ready to implement Herbert Hoover's economic policy. They would put up protective trade barriers and tariffs against foreign imports and raise taxes on successful companies and people. These were just the thing that would topple the world economy into depression, if implemented. Already, the bubble had burst on the American housing market. As early as 2001, thinking people wondered how long the bubble would last. In a few markets, the bubble never formed, but in places like California and Minnesota, housing prices became highly inflated. When the bubble finally burst in 2007, the air came out of the market quickly. The first casualty was the credit industry, which had followed the direction of liberal government and had loaned money without regard to credit history. "The rest is history", as they say.

A modern convenience

One of the rather goofy, modern conveniences from the mid-21st Century is the device that lets a person use a "lightning pager". The person is suitably zapped from the sky with a lightning bolt-like phenomenon to get their attention. They are not actually injured by the lightning bolt, but it sure gets their attention, which is the object. The accompanying capability allows the speaker to talk to the person as a disembodied voice from above. I think it is kind of a nice touch. This is sort of the modern equivalent of talking from a burning bush that is not consumed.