Is it gone? Is it out of sight? There’s no chance it’s coming back? So long, it’s been bad to know you, 2008. Good riddance.

Whew, what a year. On the positive side, we did not sustain any terrorism strikes. On the negative side, that is all the good news there was.

You probably lived through more of 2008 than I did. In the early months of the year, I was living in a hallucination. So if you know more about the first and second quarters — for some reason they’re never identified as the first half — that’s the reason.

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So here we are in 2009 still searching for a name for this decade: The hundreds? The zeros? The oughts? Sleep on it; think on it; pray on it.

You notice that every year we start out with high hopes. This year is going to be better than last year. Last year always disappoints us. This new year won’t.

There is less enthusiasm entering 2009 than any previous year I can recall. We have managed to set aside our anxiety about terrorism in the homeland. Somewhat more trepidatiously, we are about to enter upon a new administration of the burgeoning federal government, headed by a man we don’t really know and whose policies are Clintonian at best.

We like life to be predictable, to run on a certain track, to follow rules we have become accustomed to. Increasingly we are being deprived of that underlying security.

The financial crisis exploded on us like a bomb. One day we were doing routine things, taking the kids to school, paying the mortgage, catching a cold. The next, Wall Street was in crisis and familiar institutions were being taken under emergency supervision, even liquidated. Layoffs threatened to put more people out of work than at any time in 70 years. Echoes of the Great Depression started to ring in our ears. The government was throwing money around by the billions. Money it didn’t have. First a few institutions were being given billions in so-called bailouts. Before long, many worthies clamored for a bailout. And the national debt increased by trillions.

One of the most respected investment counselors in the world confessed to being a crook, leaving a worldwide trail of destruction behind him, including, if the cheated investors are bailed out, the national debt.

Many times I have said not to worry about the national debt, that we would handle it as governments always do: by defaulting. Most people thought I was kidding, but I meant it.

Governments get a somewhat better deal when they default than individuals, because there is no authority to take everything the debtor nation owns to satisfy the debt.

All but the most sophisticated won’t know the default is happening because it will be done by inflating the currency. We will repay every cent of our national debt, thus retaining our national honor and our credit rating. But we will do it with vastly depreciated dollars. That’s how governments default. Does that procedure sound familiar? Hey, look at the $20 bill. See the signature of the treasurer? It’s very small and maybe I’m hallucinating again, but it looks a lot like “Bernard Madoff.”

I won’t be surprised if the dollar is demonetized (recalled) before the end of this year and replaced with a new currency, the Amero. It will be introduced with much more solid guarantees of retaining its value, as the dollar was when it was first adopted. And there’s a profit opportunity here, too, if you play it right.

Those life insurance policies will be paying off in dollars of considerably less value than we purchased them with. People who saved dollar-denominated assets will be hurt seriously. The profligate  who were in deep debt will be rewarded by being able to pay off their obligations with cheap depreciated dollars.

You can put all your faith and trust in such men as Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke if you wish. Yet we have seen their work and been underwhelmed.

But don’t fret. It may be painful for a while, but in the long run, this experience will clear the decks for more abundant prosperity. The weak businesses will be swept away, leaving the stronger, more productive ones room to spread their wings.

After we swim a few oceans, climb a few mountains, and cross a burning desert, it will be great, greater than ever. Our new motto: Today the earth, tomorrow the solar system.

That’s it! That’s what we’ll call this decade: the Bernie Madoff Years, the days when decades of excess and outright chicanery all blew up at the same time, symbolized by the old trickster himself, Bernie Madoff.

 Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia.com or visit his website: www.waxmanmedia.com. Lionel Waxman’s Flashpoint commentaries are published in The Daily Territorial.