As we sit here today – we have the highest inflation in 40 years, stock markets are crashing, a war in Ukraine, supply chains broken, a lingering pandemic, worsening economic crisis in many countries – it feels like economic uncertainty is rising, maybe the highest it’s been in years.
The theory I wish to put forward is that uncertainty is, was and always will be a constant. The fact that we don’t have any knowledge or control of other people’s actions is reason why no matter how comfortable we may be, uncertainty is always present.
What changes is our comfort levels i.e. how aware we are to the ever lingering possibility that everything in your life can come crashing down at any given moment.
i.e. what changes is how complacent we are.
In January 2000, President Clinton gave the following address in his State of the Union address;
We begin the new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in more than 30 years; the lowest unemployment rates in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years; and next month, America will achieve the longest period of economic growth in our entire history. We have built a new economy.
This was just before the stock market crash and America went into recession. It’s not that there was no uncertainty, it was just that the people were complacent.
The opposite is true today. The current events of the world have alerted us to what uncertainty always was; present. Therefore we are highly alert and less complacent giving off the impression that uncertainty is at an all time high.
So when the world emerges out of this darkness, remember the future then will not be less bleak than it seems now. Nor would it be more brighter than it seems now.
We can only control our present.
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