Clawing Back to Recovery

Image Source: Media Bistro. 

Rarely have the domestic elections of one country meant so much to so many people inside that country and across the world. After the economic nightmare of the past four years (ironically delayed until now in some places), the United States stands at a fork in the road. Whatever choice the Americans make at the polls today, their collective decision may determine historic events in the 21st century.

Image Source: Strange Times.

That is because if the economy fails to recover soon, circumstances will recall the last time the global economy failed for ten years, when the only way to jump start the system again was through a world war. On the other hand, economic failure may be a painful sign of ongoing, as yet undefined social and political evolution initiated by technological change.

Either way, politics and government are superficial indicators of collective psychology, which is the real driver of the economy. No matter who wins the election, and no matter which political roads the US and other countries follow, it is that crisis of confidence, that loss of faith in what makes sense in the world, the Millennial anomie of eroded individual and collective values, which constitutes the real source of economic distress. Can you put a price tag on not knowing who to believe, or what to believe in, anymore?

Image Source: American Elephants.

Yes. Anomie is expensive: the American debt is over $16 trillion. Other major economies' real time debt clocks are here. We are borrowing against the emptiness in our own hearts. Through poverty or wealth, war or peace, there will be only one way back: E pluribus unum. The toxic divisiveness between different perspectives must end. Nothing can be built on a one-sided certainty that the other point of view is always alien, inaccessible and wrong.