“A bad meme – a contagious idea – began spreading through the United States in the 1980s: America is in decline, the world is going to hell, and our children’s lives will be worse than our own. The particulars are now familiar: Good jobs are disappearing, working people are falling into poverty, the underclass is swelling, crime is out of control. The post-Cold War world is fragmenting, and conflicts are erupting all over the planet. The environment is imploding – with global warming and ozone depletion, we’ll all either die of cancer or live in Waterworld. As for our kids, the collapsing educational system is producing either gun-toting gangsters or burger-flipping dopes who can’t read.’ – Peter Schwarz and Peter Leyden, Wired Magazine (1997)
Sound familiar?
For many of us, myself included, the desire to become a sophisticated and successful investor quickly leads into the world of economics and geopolitics. As we learn more about the world around us, it becomes evident just how many dangers lurk around each corner, threatening to shock the global economy and extinguish massive amounts of wealth.
In some cases, the nave investor who doesn’t pay attention to any of this is actually better off than those of us who do. That’s because the more you learn about the precarious state of global economies, the more reluctant you become to invest.
Need a few examples?
This post was published at FinancialSense on 07/11/2017.
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