Cycles
It has been said that everything goes in cycles… the galaxy, history, seasons, the economy. There’s a lot of truth to that. There is a natural ebb and flow to many aspects of our world.
When it comes to the economy, though, it seems many people have come to expect the flow and have forgotten about the ebb. Notwithstanding self-inflicted problems like the sub-prime mortgage situation, housing prices do not just continually go up… even if they generally trend upward in the long term, there are periods where prices go down. Similarly, most quality stocks have gone up over the decades… even though there were down periods. That’s just the way things are.
Somehow, a kind of entitlement attitude has become prevalent and people become disheartened when things are trending down… even if all else might be looking pretty good. Certainly, nobody likes to see declines but to expect NONE is unrealistic. Sometimes, you just have to tough things out.
Even worse, when things do have a bit of a gloomy air about them, many don’t look inward to what they can do to alleviate the situation… they look outward. It is somebody else’s fault that it happened… and somebody else HAS to fix it! Politicians, always looking for leverage, appeal to this attitude and promise many things… including some things that are impossible to deliver… and their words get heard. The “believers” then EXPECT the government to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, sometimes the problem resolves itself over time or politicians apply a temporary fix, both of which appear to be “good” to the naive, which just reinforces their belief that government is the answer to their problems. They get hooked.
Anyone who believes the government can solve YOUR problems is doomed to being a dependent… a slave… to “the system”. Others usually are not putting the shackles on the believers, though. Sadly, they usually enslave themselves.
