What Can't Continue, Won't ContinueWhile there is a recurrent theme on the Prophecy Podcast blog of a crisis in 3 to 7 years, I do have an assumption underlying that “prediction” that I hope is false. As I have also pointed out, what can’t continue, won’t continue. Our current policies can’t continue. If that is the approach that is tried, it will fail in 3 to 7 years. I expect instead that there will be various short term fixes with varying degrees of success. Describing the future of the US as a long period of decline sounds horrible, but in fact this is an optimistic scenario.
The blog post yesterday about Grand Mal seizures as an analogy to our economic situation led Pam Dewey to write to me about her view of the future. Pam’s mother was subject to serious danger of such seizures as the result of a massive stroke in 1986. She took Dilantin from then on until her death in 2009. It was supposed to be a dose four times a day, but over time the confusion of old age led to her missing many, many doses. Under normal circumstances, being under-medicated could easily have led her to repeated seizures. Yet in all those years, she only had a single serious incident involving one. Pam noted:
I say all that to say ... the US may end up like my mother. Needing to take the Dilantin, and always in danger of those seizures—but somehow getting by for years and years without any Grand Mal. That’s one of my theories of prophetic speculation and prognostication ... we just have no way to predict anomalies that make no sense but do exist. So ALL the pundits can be surprised, because there are just TOO many variables that can head off in unexpected directions.
Yes, the situation may never come to a crisis moment, but instead the bad economy can continue for a long time. Or there can be something unexpected, out of left field, that leads to a crisis. Just like Yoga Berra said, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”
What is the economic Dilantin that we need to take? While I feel no need to walk on hot coals for Tony Robbins, he gives us a reasonable course for the future I wish we would take.