The euphoria around economic booms often obscures the possibility for a bust, which explains why leaders typically miss the warning signs.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Monetary policy causes booms and busts.
If we look at the life cycle of technologies, we see an early period of over-enthusiasm, then a 'bust' when disillusionment sets in, followed by the real revolution.
There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement.
Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.
Why are we in this mess, now facing the prospect of economic armageddon? It's because the prevailing characteristic has been greed, and it doesn't matter whether it's individuals living beyond their means or governments living beyond their means or people seeking to get rich quick.
Concentrating wealth in the hands of the few and deregulating financial institutions and practices lead to speculative bubbles that eventually burst - and that brings the whole country down.
Introverts listen better, they assess risks more carefully, they can be wiser managers. It's not for nothing that the Silicon Valley billionaires are so often the retiring types.
The wealthy are confident in their abilities to overcome bad situations - on the job, in their personal lives, with their finances. Many have triumphed over dismal financial starts. And, unlike most of the population that hops from job to job, career to career, the wealthy are much more likely to stick with what they start.
What we need to understand is, one, that there are market failures; and two, that there are things like asset bubbles and irrational exuberance. There are periods of booms, bubbles, and manias. These things, if left to themselves, can lead to crashes, to busts, to panics.
Few things trigger fear and misconception more than economic tribulation, and nothing prompts elected officials to react with more simplistic populism.
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