There’s an old theory around that if you want to measure the level of optimism Americans feel about their situation and the economy, check the number of houses with Christmas lights in your neighborhood. If that adage is true, then people around my neck of the East Valley must be feeling pretty damned optimistic about their situation and their prospects for 2013 given the fact that I’ve never seen so many houses in our neighborhood with Christmas lights up. On our street alone, of the thirteen houses only four have no lights up at all, and one them belongs to Islamists across the street.

The same holds true on the two streets over from us to the south – practically every house lit up, and not just with the old traditional window lights like we have. It’s a veritable Vegas of illumination, with yards surrounded by lights, houses framed with every kind of lighting imaginable, and no small amount of dopey inflatable creatures that wheeze their magic on front yards with a soft, airy hiss.

I sure hope these folks are right, but forgive me if I’m not nearly as optimistic about the coming year as these folks seem to be. Perhaps they’re all Obama voters happy that their guy got in for another four years. Perhaps they’re government workers – after all, given the way things are going and the way government seems to be expanding at every level in the Republic, a government job is about a safe a one as you can have these days.

All I can see down the line is more bad stuff happening. Sure, the unemplyment rate dropped another two tenths of a percent to 7.7%, but again, that’s only because of the shrinking national workforce as people either give up looking for work or take multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet. Taxes are going up for the corporate and investor classes, corporations will be cutting back, and it’ll be the poor bastards who slave away at their jobs to make ends meet who’ll be the ones caught in the middle. I sure hope I’m wrong, but I have a feeling next year at this time things aren’t going to be nearly as cozy and rosy as they appear to be at this point in time. Like I say, I wish I was wrong, but when I look at the people in charge of this country I see a bunch of clueless clowns – of both parties – only concerned with scoring political points and expanding their own power and influence; they could give a shit about the rest of us.

And that goes especially for the guy in the White House.

Ah well. But it doesn’t mean – at least for now – I can’t take my weekly stroll around the neighborhood and bask in the warm and colorful lights of the season. It’s what’s on the horizon after the holiday festivities are over and the lights and decorations come down that I’m worried about.