Sorry, my crystal ball has a crack in it

I guess I would feel something was missing if my friend and debate partner didn't debate with me. I wrote a couple days ago about Fareed Zakaria's opinion in Newsweek that our world is actually quite resilient, which is why we are already on the rebound from a recession that could have been a depression. My friend responded:

I wish I could agree. Fareed Zakaria is apparently a blooming-blind optimist.

• inflation remains a grave threat, especially to retired people. It impoverished 98% of Russians just last decade, lest we forget.
• Bush's program to locate missile defenses next door to Russia (which the Russians understood very well) shows that war mongering among the greater powers is far from over. Just give us another right-wing leader... and show no surprise when other nations behave the same way. There are many tinderbox areas of the world capable of exploding into conflicts that can draw in larger powers, thanks to their economic and political entanglements. Nation states are not sustainable without trade and trade is subject to blackmail.
• this supposed new world economy has winners and losers. Most developing nations are deeply in debt to the West.
• capitalism unregulated needs no competition -- it is self-destructive.
• While I agree that the economic crisis of 2008 seems reasonably well controlled, the damage is vast for those who lost jobs and/or homes. It's only the upper-middle and richer classes with substantial investments (you and me) that have really recovered. There are lots of other peoples' shoes to walk in that pinch very painfully.
• the other big unsustainable problems that face us, such as global warming, overpopulation, water issues, health care justice and costs, etc. are not so easily addressed as the 2008 economy was, once a crisis hits. Waiting to act until the problem is panic-urgent won't do. I suspect we (the whole human species) lack the leadership to address these problems adequately before they reach crisis.

I don't see a pretty century before us.

I don't think Zakaria was gazing into a crystal ball. Reading over my condensation of what Zakaria said I can see where my word choices might have implied that he was. I shall attempt to clarify. Zakaria (and I) listed several reasons why the current recession didn't last as long and wasn't as deep as first feared. These conditions are true today and influenced this recession. Past performance is not an indication of what the future holds. So repeating Zakaria's reasons:

* The Great Powers are at peace now and things haven't been this peaceful in 175 years.
* Inflation is tamed at the moment.
* A technological infrastructure leads to a diffusion of knowledge. This should only improve.
* Many countries have made great strides in lifting people out of poverty and are reluctant to sacrifice those gains in a war.
* Capitalism has no competing ideologies and people are clamoring for better regulation.