High overcast and quiet this early Friday on California’s north coast as we come to the end of week one in the end-of-the-year blow-fest, and we await the coming of 2014.
Right now, we’re at a balmy 46 degrees, hopefully working our way up to the low 60s some time later.
And did I mention it was Friday?

An emotional year for me — due to the kids — and an exciting one for everybody else, from national scandals, to many, many killings and a “do nothing” Congress.
Yet again President Obama for the year: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who not only admitted to smoking crack, but made inane public statements and walked into everything from cameras to other elected officials, had a higher approval rating in November than President Obama.

(Illustration found here).

We still have another few days to hash/re-hash all the shit that took place this year, and a goodly part of it wasn’t really nice at all. Most-likely it’s the speed of events, one piece of shit followed by another piece of shit — like the week of April 15, remember?
How do Americans view this soon-to-be history 2013?
Good and bad, mostly bad, though:

All told, 32 percent say 2013 was a better year for them than 2012, while 20 percent say it was worse and 46 percent say the two years were really about the same.
Young people were more apt to see improvement: 40 percent of people under age 30 called 2013 a better year than 2012, compared with 25 percent of people age 65 or older.
The public splits evenly on how the year turned out for the country, 25 percent saying it was better than 2012, 25 percent saying it was worse.
As with most questions about the state of affairs in the U.S. these days, there’s a sharp partisan divide.
Democrats are more apt to say the U.S. turned out better in 2013 than 2012 (37 percent) than are Republicans (17 percent).
Thinking about the world at large, 30 percent say 2013 was worse than 2012, while just 20 percent say it was better.
…
A separate question asked respondents to rate the importance of several news stories for them personally.
The budget fight, which led to a partial shutdown of the federal government in October, was rated extremely or very important by 60 percent of Americans, and prompted rare bipartisan agreement.
About two-thirds in each major party — 65 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats — rated it highly important.
A majority said the Boston Marathon bombings were extremely or very important, and 47 percent considered the national debate over gun laws that important.

A year rifled.

And along with the usual end-of-the-year lists of good and bad shit, movies, books, photos, assholes, and so forth, how about a list on statistics?
Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post pulls it together — for instance:

— On a typical day, 3,300 American teenagers smoke their first cigarette.
— Only 13 percent of students in two-year colleges graduate in two years.
— David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox batted .688 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
— A low-end iPhone has 240,000 times the memory of the computers on Voyager 1, which is now nearly 12 billion miles from Earth.
— The stock market has risen 30 percent for the year (through Dec. 24), representing a gain in paper wealth of $5.2 trillion.
That’s produced 56 all-time highs, second only to 1995, which had 91.
— A leaf blower with a two-stroke engine emits 299 times the hydrocarbons of a Ford Raptor pickup truck.
— In October, there were almost 5.7 million “missing workers” — people who had dropped out of the labor force but, under trends prevailing before the Great Recession, would have had jobs or been looking for work.
Counting them would have raised October’s unemployment rate about 10 percent, instead of the reported 7 percent.
— Half the Republicans in the House have served three years or less (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 23).
— After climbing steadily between 1990 and 2010, sales of diet soda took a 6.8 percent dive in 2013.
— Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of online Americans use social networking sites, up from 8 percent in 2005.
There are few differences by educational attainment: 67 percent of high-school dropouts are users compared with 72 percent of high school and college graduates.

And this past year still didn’t lead to any economic revival, though, some indicators show improvement, the real loser is still the regular, rank-and-file worker.
Paul Krugman in his column in the New York Times this morning explains:

Now think about what this means for workers’ bargaining power.
When the economy is strong, workers are empowered.
They can leave if they’re unhappy with the way they’re being treated and know that they can quickly find a new job if they are let go.
When the economy is weak, however, workers have a very weak hand, and employers are in a position to work them harder, pay them less, or both.
Is there any evidence that this is happening?
And how.
The economic recovery has, as I said, been weak and inadequate, but all the burden of that weakness is being borne by workers.
Corporate profits plunged during the financial crisis, but quickly bounced back, and they continued to soar.
Indeed, at this point, after-tax profits are more than 60 percent higher than they were in 2007, before the recession began.
We don’t know how much of this profit surge can be explained by the fear factor — the ability to squeeze workers who know that they have no place to go.
But it must be at least part of the explanation.
In fact, it’s possible (although by no means certain) that corporate interests are actually doing better in a somewhat depressed economy than they would if we had full employment.
What’s more, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that this reality helps explain why our political system has turned its backs on the unemployed.
No, I don’t believe that there’s a secret cabal of C.E.O.’s plotting to keep the economy weak.
But I do think that a major reason why reducing unemployment isn’t a political priority is that the economy may be lousy for workers, but corporate America is doing just fine.

Income inequality and economics, a piece of bad shit. Americans in their wallets understand — from CNN:

A new CNN/ORC poll released Friday showed people were pessimistic that the economy was improving.
Nearly 70 percent said the economy is generally in poor shape, and only 32 percent rated it good.
Two-thirds of respondents said most of the economic news they’ve heard recently was bad news.
More rural than urban dwellers said the economy was in poor shape.
And just over half expected the economy to remain in poor shape a year from now.

One good thing — it’s Friday and the weekend’s almost here!