Who knows what to make of anything. I certainly don’t. And wait til you see what I have to say about the year ahead. Even less informed ignorance. To say it was a disappointing year would be an understatement. While daily life came close to returning to pre-epidemic levels, despite the early 2022 Omicron waves, or perhaps because of it, the public health totalitarians appear to be breathlessly awaiting any excuse to re-impose all the restrictions that were so futile before. We still see mask and vax mandates in some places. We are requiring people traveling from China to test negative. The reality at this point is that a CV-19 infection is less threatening than one from most other respiratory viruses. Time to start living like it.
The really disappointing part is the continued slide of the country into the endless abyss of woke ideology. I, along with many others, had hoped that the mid-term elections would be strong rebuke to this insanity. Largely thanks to the egomaniac Donald Trump, it wasn’t. So the rapid descent continues. Nothing is getting better in this country. Nothing. The economy is a house of cards propped up by endless government spending. Our financial situation has only one possible end–long-term stagflation and lowered living standards. Our educational system has children learning less and less. We have large numbers of people who simply live like goofballs or who have given up on working or making any contribution to the improvement of humanity.
The picture overseas isn’t much better. Western Europe is also infested by wokeism and by massive deficit spending. Authoritarian regimes appear ascendant everywhere. Climate change nonsense is pervasive and is lowering our standards of living, while China, India, Russia and other countries carry on with cheap and reliable fossil fuels. Human bias is always to be unduly optimistic and ignore history. Things often turn out very badly for humanity, for countries, or for certain groups of people. They likely will this time as well.
Are there bright spots, actual beacons of hope? The fight of the Ukraine people to save their country against a brutal and barbaric invasion is beyond inspiring and brave. The courage of the Chinese people, living in the most totalitarian country in the world, in rebelling, and succeeding, against absurdly restrictive and futile CV-19 suppression measures. The success of politicians like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott. But not much else. Sounds gloomy, but I think it is realistic. We went backwards this year, that is the bottom line.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at 
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I’ve been a pessimist my entire life. It comes naturally to me but it hasn’t really served me well and I don’t recommend it to anyone who has a choice. It has saved me a little money in the market this year though, I’ll give it that much.
Hard not to be pessimistic about the state of affairs here and elsewhere. Less pessimistic about my immediate environment and what I can control / do in my sphere of influence. However, it certainly is wise to be prepared for a turn of the worse.
On a side note, thanks for the work you have done in all your posts. Only found your site several months, but one of my go to sites now to see what new posts have been made.