Last week, I entertained some family members from New Zealand. They were staying in a hotel in Manhattan. They were shocked. One morning on the sidewalk outside their hotel, there was a man shooting up. Next to him, someone was urinating. They were not expecting this. The New York they remember was vibrant and friendly.
It feels a bit like the late 70s when the word "malaise" was being bandied about. Jimmy Carter was president. Inflation was rampant, and America was held hostage by the Mullahs in Teheran.We came out of that bad patch with the leadership of Ronald Reagan. I sense we're looking for someone who will take us out of our current malaise. That person had better emerge next year, or we and the whole world are in for a decade of trouble.