I am not so sure that we should be overly concerned about a period of turbulence or recklessness for the long term good. I feel that as a nation we have developed a level of comfortness that we believe we have a G0d given right to. The law of diminishing returns means that a lot of effort is expended for little gain as we continually try to push for further gains. Per capita we are the worlds biggest users of energy and domestic water and we have convinced ourselves that this is justified because are implementing new technology instead of just getting back to the basics and cutting out waste. Most people fear recessions, yet periodic recessions are important and neccessary to force change and adjust priorities and to provide opportunities for those who have got their house in order. Few people here would have not gone through one or more tough times in their life, and I would guess that even fewer would not look back and feel that they didn't come out the other end wiser, more organised and better prepared to deal with the rest of their lives. What concerns me is that we may now have one or two generations that haven't learnt those lessons and on a global scale they are up against people who have had those lessons deeply instilled. We would never knowingly engineer tough times, but we shouldn't fear them as something to avoid at all costs. Surely we haven't lost the ability to turn a negative into a positive. If we have then the need to relearn such basic skills is even more imperative. The only people that fear getting knocked down are those who don't think they have got what it takes to get up again.
