My first column for The New Daily not quite four years ago, was a bright, cheerful effort, listing the reasons to feel optimistic about 2021.

Today is my last column for this plucky, hopeful publication, and I’m afraid, dear reader, that optimism has largely deserted me. I’m still by nature an optimist, but right now finding support for that in the world is hard.

In January 2021, it was different: the Covid vaccines were working, global central banks, including the Reserve Bank of Australia were in “whatever it takes” mode, pumping trillions of dollars into the economy with governments doing likewise.

Joe Biden was about to be inaugurated, defying Trump’s illegal efforts to prevent it, including the violent assault on the Capitol two weeks before. Things were looking up.

The stockmarket was booming: when I wrote that first column in January 2021, the ASX200 had rallied 40 per cent from its low, on its way to a rise of 60 per cent by August.

But then that was followed a bear market that ended with the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, sparking an incredible 70 per cent rise in the US market in two years from an already high level, and it’s still going.

I look back on those early months of 2021 as a kind of golden interval: we’d looked over the pandemic abyss nine months ago and were now starting to put the menace of Covid behind us, especially economically, although emotionally and politically, it would take longer.

The dismal failure of the climate conference in Glascow was still nine months off, Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, inflation had not yet taken off, interest rates were still microscopic, unemployment was coming down, China’s property sector had not collapsed and Hamas had not murdered 1200 Israelis, sparking horrible retribution.

A lot can happen in four years.

As we get ready for Christmas 2024, all those things have happened and Australia’s housing crisis is worse, we’ve had seven consecutive quarters of shrinking per capita GDP and a big fall in disposable income, despite which the RBA is refusing to join the rest of the world in cutting interest rates, because unemployment hasn’t increased enough.

In fact, unemployment didn’t rise at all. The unemployment rate was 3.9 per cent when the year began and it’s still 3.9 per cent.

That dog not barking is the most important Australian economic event of 2024; this slowdown, engineered by the RBA to control inflation, has resulted in by far the smallest ever increase in unemployment:

Why? Several reasons: low productivity, the shift to services and a surge in immigration (more people arrive and boost demand than get a job).

Population growth in the first 11 months of 2024 was 465,000, including 428,500 immigrants, but only 393,000 of them got a job, so the lift in aggregate demand from population growth was nearly 20 per cent greater than the increase in employment.

There will be interest rate relief next year only if unemployment rises, which is hardly a reason for happiness, especially if you’re a Prime Minister facing an election in a few months. Heads Albanese loses, tails Dutton wins.

And when the rate cuts begin, there’s unlikely to be many of them. The futures market is predicting only two or three – that’s it. If so, it will be the shallowest monetary easing cycle in history.

So the cost of living crisis of 2024 won’t end in 2025. Prices will rise, interest rates won’t come down much and while house prices are starting to fall in Melbourne and Sydney, it won’t be enough to make housing affordable again.

In fact, housing minister Clare O’Neill let the cat out of the bag last week when she told an ABC radio announcer that “our Government’s policies are not going to reduce house prices – we want house prices to grow sustainably,” which lit up social media like a Christmas tree.

But that is obviously true. All politicians have to play a delicate game with housing: appear to be trying to make it more affordable because it’s a “crisis” but not achieve it, since most voters own a house and don’t want its value to fall.

Meanwhile, four years ago we were preparing for the inauguration of Joe Biden; now it’s Donald Trump’s turn again, this time with a bunch of wildly incompetent and/or ideological ratbags and billionaires with him.

Except for his pick as Treasury Secretary, hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, who appears to be curiously competent.

When Bessent joined the Republican campaign as economic adviser, Trump said to him (according to Bessent): “Scott, what are we going to do about the debt and deficits? How are we going to get those under control without causing a recession?”

Bessent replied: “It’s not going to be easy. Cut the deficit to 3 per cent [of GDP] by 2028; achieve 3 per cent real economic growth, largely through deregulation; and then add three million new barrels of energy per day.” He called the plan “three arrows” or “3-3-3” and Trump was impressed enough to make him Treasury Secretary.

Bessent’s “plan” is just a wish list, but it directly contradicts Trump’s two other big plans – to impose punitive tariffs and deport millions of undocumented workers. Those two plans would result in high inflation and recession – stagflation – which is the opposite of how Trump – correctly – believes he won the election.

In an interview last week he said: “I won on groceries. Very simple word, groceries. Like, you know, who uses the word? I started using the word. The groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time. I’m going to bring those prices right down”.

Well, he won’t bring prices down with tariffs, so it should be fairly easy for Scott Bessent to persuade him to use them only as bargaining chips in foreign relations, and not actually do them.

But this is a tenuous reason for optimism – that Donald Trump won’t do what he has promised.

And finally, most depressing of all, is climate change.

The annual conference of parties process has descended into farce, with the last two meetings – COP28 and COP29 – held in oil and gas producing nations and presided over by oil company chiefs.

Needless to say, there is no agreement on financial transfers from rich to poor nations and global carbon emissions have not even started to come down.

After 29 pointless annual conferences, we are still heading for catastrophic global warming.

Meanwhile Australia is engaged in a hilarious distraction about nuclear power, with the Coalition’s “costings” including coal-fired power stations that continue to operate on the same spot where nuclear ones are getting built. And the lower cost of nuclear is based on a forecast of reduced power consumption due to slower uptake of electric vehicles and electric appliances, ignoring the fact that this means more spending on petrol and gas, even if it happened, which is unlikely.

Meanwhile the Labor Government continues to approve coal mines and gas projects.

Nobody, anywhere, is actually serious about preventing global warming, so it won’t be prevented.

Alan Kohler also writes for Intelligent Investor.