We can see how fundamentally weak the markets are at moments like this.
There is no robustness there to cope with any unforeseen or 'Black Swan' events.
And in this world of ours, there will always be real-world stress tests just around the corner.
The trolls don't build any of this into their prognostications.
In the case of Skol, everything is awesome all of the time, the Fed never pumps, stocks are valued exactly as they should be, skyrocketing house prices and sky-rocketing mortgage debt are fantastic, government / corporate / individual debt is never a problem.
In this case of Dr Who, 'this time is different', living standards are improving, management techniques are getting better by the day, and Gold will assuredly 'revert to the mean'.
Come a 'Black Swan' event, and the underlying fragility is shockingly and immediately exposed. There is no food left on the supermarket shelves in Wuhan.
A debt-laden economy which is kept running on stimulus is like someone who has let themselves get fat and flabby and unfit, complacently thinking that there is no need to keep in shape. But the time then comes when they suddenly find themselves deep in the dark woods, needing to outrun a pack of wolves. A lean and mean economy full of businesses which have survived the normal economic cycle because they are 'the fittest' is an economy that is in shape to meet the tests and challenges that will confront it. We are living through an era of ultra-low interest rates & easy credit when the debt taken on nose-bleed levels is going to flatten and destroy under it's crushing weight.
