What if I told you I had found the secret to knowing what the economy would do in the coming decade? Such knowledge could make you millions in the stock market. You would know whether to buy gold, real estate; which banks might fail and which industries would prosper.
But the truth is, I can’t see the future. I can make predictions based upon research and past market trends; but I have no magic mirror that will allow me to KNOW with certainly what the future holds. My predictions are just a best guess; and guess what—so are the predictions of everyone else.
What that means is that we can’t know when the housing market will turn; we can’t know if this will be a double-dip recession, or if it might collapse into a depression. We can’t know. And we can’t know because the economy—the world—is just too complex. We can’t see our financial future because we don’t know if China will decide to stop purchasing our debt, if war will break out in the Middle East, if the terrorists will gain access to nuclear weapons, if the jobless rate will climb to 12%, if the global economy will collapse, or if the world will suffer a climactic or other catastrophe.
Additionally, we cannot predict the future because things will occur which are yet to be conceived. New inventions may revolutionize the way we communicate or conduct business; alliances between nations may be forged that were never before considered possible; or new strains of disease or other disasters may wipe out entire populations.
When I was a kid, I read predictions that we wouldn’t need cars by the year 2000; we’d all have personal aircraft. We’d have inexpensive homes (about $5,000 each) built with synthetic materials and which would be disposable—when we tired of them, we’d just tear them down and build another. Our kitchens would have a large freezer, where all our processed food delights would be stored; and an electronic oven would thaw and cook our meals within minutes. We’d be protected from all disease by the chemical concoctions of laboratories. The new vacation “hot spots” would be the Moon or Mars, where we’d stay in huge glass-domed cities.
None of those or dozens of other exotic predictions occurred. But what did happen that was beyond the scope of all those making predictions, was the invention of the personal computer, a single device that has contributed to one of the greatest transformations in human history, breeding a technology that is advancing exponentially. A once powerful and feared government that dominated half a continent has collapsed, another that had struggled for centuries as a semi-feudal state has blossomed into a major center of manufacturing and economic power.
All of this is to remind us that our future is uncertain; and this applies especially to those in political power who tell us what WILL occur, both with our economy and our national security. Our problem lies in believing that somehow our “leaders” do have a magic mirror, that their proclamations, projections, and promises will come to pass. And the one thing of which I am most certain is that they, like me, are only guessing and hoping.
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