Things Will Get Better

I read a great article a few months ago by one of this country's most respected financial advisers. I unfortunately lost the article and now can't remember who wrote it or what it was called. But it was a summation of everything he'd learned through his career. One of the most interesting entries had to do with recessions and depressions.

As we all know, the U.S. has seen our economy cycle many, many times. We've weathered through our share of economic downturns, some more severe than others. But for every one of them, taking the stock market as a barometer, not only has the market recovered to pre-crash levels it then went higher. No matter how low it sinks it eventually recovers and does better. Every time. Why should we imagine our current predicament would be any different?

I'm sure during each of our previous downturns there were plenty of doom-and-gloom prophets declaring their respective recessions the end of life as we'd previously known it. It's easy, in the moment, to be swept up in fear and panic, and imagine the world about to self-destruct. But even at it's lowest point in history, it didn't. It got better and then improved further.

I think part of the reason this downturn seems especially significant is that media coverage has never been so ubiquitous. We can't blink our eyes without seeing something on television, in print or online, and much of those messages are sensationalistic. So we, as a country, and possibly as a global community, are much more fearful than we've been in the past, eroding consumer confidence and potentially worsening the situation.

But it will get better. Put our current situation in it's rightful historical context, and you see that this is no more than a massive hiccup. This isn't the end of days. It's just a long string of bad ones. And the pendulum will eventually swing back.