John, perhaps the mere presence of the fear will avoid the very thing which is scary. With many people positioning to ride out the financial tsunami and having now had nearly two years to take their positions, people are perhaps removing the very forces which propel the problems.
It's the surprises which get us. Who would have thought the word box-cutter and wielded in the hands of some mystic morons could do such damage and so suddenly. With a little preparation, the WTC attack wouldn't have happened. The last plane went down in a relatively failed attack, thanks to a little understanding in the passengers.
Y2K had potential to create vast mayhem. Perhaps, if it had sprung on the world on 1 January 2000, we would have had a vast collapse. But people were ready and taking countervailing action.
Similarly, if the world had gone into a self-sustaining collapse like a nuclear reactor going critical, it could have turned to mayhem before anyone could adapt, which would have accelerated the collapse into a black hole. The time for everyone to adapt is why we probably won't have the great collapse. Too many people have run for cover, sold out their margin debt, been cashed up and kicked out, reallocated, re-employed, sold their houses and generally tidied up their personal positions.
It's the surprises which get us. If we see a scary monster coming from a long way away, humans tend to find a solution.
Sure, this one is pretty big, and a lot of people have been financially ruined and in other ways ruined too. But overall, most of us are still standing. Somewhat bedraggled but okay. Sure Enron was a surprise. No doubt other big things will go wrong too. But Winstar has been sold up. Globalstar is in the process of being taken over. Japan has had a decade of getting used to their mess. People start to dig a bit deeper and toughen up. They change their habits to rebalance things.
Off for a nice cup of tea.
Mqurice
Dow 16,000 Feb 2002 is still possible!!
Mqurice |
