We had slowing economic recovery, a steep recession, and a recovery – all in one year.

We would like to say that time flies when you are having fun, however, no one in their right mind would describe 2020 as fun. Yet somehow, we have arrived at the last month of the year and it all seems like a blur. The world-wide pandemic brought us an economic roller coaster we might never match again. We had slowing economic recovery, a steep recession, and a recovery – all in one year. During the Great Recession, these highs and lows took most of a decade.

Even the recovery has been very uneven. If you were in real estate or residential loans, the recovery was almost instantaneous. Other sectors, especially the leisure and travel industries, are still waiting to recover. Some may never recover because of the fundamental changes which have occurred within our economy -- and other industries have thrived. Even where we live and work has been affected.

Like most years, we will spend much of December and January recapping what has happened in 2020, as well as presenting predictions for 2021. And one thing that 2020 taught us is that accurate predictions of the future are just about impossible. In December of last year, did anyone predict what hit us in 2020? The question we all should be asking is -- If this situation happens again, will we be better prepared? While we are all focused on healing and recovery in 2021, we must not let this last question go unanswered.