To wit: In a remarkable piece of handwringing published today in the Financial Times, "Self-Doubt Tarnishes Brand America," Edward Luce observes the decay of "American intellectual hegemony" and declares that "the metallic rust of decline has crept into the American soul."

Meanwhile, over at the Wall Street Journal, we are offered a glimpse at the annual Christmas letter sent out by Guy Hands, the founder of private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners.

We need to question the accepted wisdom that a truly global market benefits all citizens in western developed nations. Indeed, I suspect we will, in time, see globalization as the driver that delivered a massive transfer of economic power from the west to the east.

Over the long term it will result in an ever growing class of permanent poor being created in the west. I also suspect new graduates will find it increasingly difficult to get the jobs for which they are qualified. It is the young and the poor in the west who will pay the cost of global human resources competition.

No doubt: Globalization makes it tougher to compete — though we can argue whether it is ultimately more economically devastating to workers in the formerly flush West than relentless technological innovation. (For example, my own industry, journalism, is being remade by the Internet, not China or India.) But that's quibbling: Globalization plus technological progress together are squeezing Western workers in a giant vice grip.

It didn't use to be that way. Once upon a time, all you had to do was be born in the U.S., or West Germany, or Japan, and, barring certain disadvantages such as race or gender, a headstart on grabbing for the good life was all but assured: widespread levels of affluence and a steadily rising standard of living unmatched throughout all of human history. Now it's not so easy — in part because of this "massive transfer of economic power from the west to the east."

Of course, from the East's perspective, it's maybe not so bad. As FreeExchange notes, "the economies of India and China basically doubled in size over the [last decade], dealing a major blow to poverty in countries that are home to over 2 billion people, one third of earth's population." I'm betting that that there are few citizens in those countries who would be excited about a return to the halcyon days of the 20th century, or who would be so prone to decry the fact that global markets don't benefit all the citizens in Western developed nations.

One person's massive transfer is another's rebalancing. For centuries, Western Europe, the U.S. and a handful of other countries dominated the global economy by force of gunboats and market capitalism. That's over, or at least in serious jeopardy. But should this change of fortune be read as a marker of Western decline or as the natural, inevitable rise of the rest of the world? We've all seen how the West can no longer enforce its will at World Trade Organization or climate change negotiations. Should we lament the loss of hegemony — which makes it easy to get things done — or celebrate the rise of multipolarity — which makes it much, much harder to cut a deal?

There's also, as Andrew Sprung points out at Xpostfactoid, the encouraging news that globally, life expectancy is up, child mortality down, and the poverty rate is shrinking at an accelerating pace.

Maybe, as 2010 approaches, it's time to suck it up a little bit, and instead of bemoaning how screwed up everything is, take some time to think about the vast global trends that may make the 21st century a better time to be born in China or India or Brazil than has been true for centuries — or ever. Or if that kind of one-world thinking is too hard to reach, we can perhaps settle for smaller victories. I, for one, am very glad the Christmas bomber didn't kill anyone, that the prospects for the U.S. economy are nowhere near as frightening today as they were a year ago, and that we at least seem to have our attention focused on the important problems — energy, climate, healthcare, financial regulatory reform — instead of just blithely ignoring them.

Rust in the soul? There's nothing here that a little WD-40 and some elbow grease can't fix. Or at least, that's HTWW's New Year's resolution.

Wirth is reasonably optimistic that a last minute compromise will be hammered out involving concessions on all sides, focusing on the four main areas of dispute -- emissions reductions, financing provisions for the developing world, monitoring and evaluation, and technology transfer. But it won't be a perfect deal, and it certainly won't satisfy the climate activists currently getting tear-gassed by the Danish police.

Obama campaigned on hope and change, but is governing according to the principle that a few incremental steps of progress are better than flat-lining, (or going full-throttle in reverse.) It's probably the only realistic approach, but it sure explains his sagging poll numbers. Because it's very hard to get excited about crumbs when you've been dreaming about cake.

But what about the sheep?

Or perhaps you missed the emergence of flocks of back-lit LED sheep as the latest killer app for the latest, greatest, lightning technology? Korean technology giant Samsung hooked up with some Wales sheepfarmers and produced some fairly stunning demonstrations of what can be done with a heck of a lot of LED lights and some very enthusiastic Australian shepherd dogs.

If I were a sheep, I'd probably be annoyed beyond exasperation by the human-dog cabal that forced me to play the part of a pixel in a game of Pong spread out across a Welsh hillside, but there's no denying the sheer kookiness of as one commentator described it, "farmyard animals playing giant computer games:

For bonus, here's some light news coverage of the viral sensation:

And just to prove it's not all about the sheep, here's some more mesmerizing LED magic, this time from the Bayer headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany.

The Bayer display incorporated 5.6 million LED lights -- suggesting that the solid growth of the LED industry might be at least partially due to massive public relation stunts.

If you can't get them a gift, says Ritholtz, "just give them the damned cash."

Now, before I launch into a defense of gift cards, let me acknowledge that I am fully aware that they are essentially a scam. The creators of gift cards count on the fact that they will be left in drawers, or lost, or incompletely cashed out. What can you buy with that 89 cents remainder left on your card? Nothing good. When you buy a gift card for someone, you are essentially forking over some portion of the purchase price directly to the corporation selling the cards. This is sleazy and underhanded.

However, there are also efficiency gains from properly distributed gift cards. I don't buy into Joel Waldfogel's "Scroogenomics" thesis that decries winter gift-giving for its "billions of dollars in value destruction" as people give each others gifts that they don't want and don't need. But I am all too aware that a 12-year-old boy is a much better judge of what games he wants for his Nintendo DS or Xbox 360 than I am.

So why not just give the boy cash? Surely cash would allow an even more efficient allocation of resources? But cash is inferior, I think, because cash, like it or not, carries with it some assumption of responsibility. You don't want to waste your cash frivolously, or you might feel compelled to save it for some greater goal. You might end up, horror of horrors, being forced to use it to buy some other kid a birthday present! But a gift-card to, say, GameStop, is a ticket to freedom. Go be frivolous! Buy a game! Buy whatever game you want! It's better than money because it comes with an explicit, unignorable directive to use it in a way that gives you pleasure.

If you gave me cash for Christmas, I'd probably save it to pay for groceries. But if you gave me a gift card redeemable at my local bike shop -- I'd be utterly delighted to splurge on new gloves.

The same goes for an iTunes gift card, or a bookstore gift card. Sure, the gift-card issuer is taking its slice off the top, but the combination of a more efficient process of gift-giving along with the direct mandate against fiscal prudence means there is real value in the present.

Maybe I'm biased because my own 12-year-old son has made it clear that he considers gift cards to game stores or bookstores acceptable and desirable. Which is not to say that he would be pleased if that's all that was under the tree on Christmas morning. That would be upsetting and disappointing. He also wants to be surprised, and enjoys having some proof that people understand him and what he wants and can demonstrate that by giving him a cool gift. I certainly would rather pull off such a magic trick than just give him a gift card. But let's not to be so quick to condemn -- and instead appreciate that almost everything has its evolutionarily useful niche, if correctly deployed.