Setting the Scene - The Final BDO Centennial Decade: The 2000s
The 21st century started off on a positive note with countries around the world celebrating the dawn of the new millennium with spectacular celebrations. Even the so-called Year 2000 or "Y2K" bug failed to put a damper on spirits.
The Y2K dilemma resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits on computers, and many feared it would be a clicking time bomb for all major computer applications. While no globally significant computer failures occurred when the clocks rolled over into 2000, preparation for the Y2K problem had a significant effect on the computer industry. Many banks responded to the Y2K problem by forcing full four-digit year entries on checks, which helps to prevent the error from occurring in accounting environments.
The excitement and enthusiasm of entering a new century, however, vanished a year later for most Americans when two terrorist-hijacked commercial jets struck the World Trade Center, another hit the Pentagon and still another missed its target, but crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The U.S. responded by launching the War on Terror and, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which broadly expanded law enforcement's surveillance and investigative powers. As part of the War on Terror, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Massive spending on both wars plunged the U.S. into a period of economic uncertainty.
Just as it seemed America and its economy had turned the corner from Sept. 11, the stock market crashed in the fall of 2008 as a result of the fallout from subprime mortgage lending. Unemployment soared, foreclosures rose, and the U.S. entered what many refer to as a "super-recession."
But not all the news was negative. Globalization increased in the 2000s, in large part due to the Internet and growing opportunities in developing nations such as China and India. The European Union became more homogenous and expanded to several more countries, including Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The Internet exploded in new and inconceivable directions with the launch of sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter. Americans became increasingly conscious of their carbon footprint, and the green movement spread in the latter part of the decade, which emphasized reusable consumer goods, hybrid cars and minimal energy use.
The 2000s also boasted a proud first with the election of Barack Obama as the first African American U.S. president in 2008.
We conclude our Centennial Corner series with this article. As the second decade of the 21st century begins, BDO is still writing its story and BDO News will be reporting it. Be sure to stay tuned in the coming weeks for two additional Centennial podcasts on the firm's international organization and the evolution of BDO's culture.
