Now
I have a better sense of how limited, (and how beneficial), my formal education
was. I also have a better sense of
what the true risks are that we all face as we try to navigate
the uncharted territory ahead in
pursuit of long term goals.
I
say "uncharted" because, despite what the so-called
experts (and the institutions that pay their salaries)
would have you believe, I think our economy now faces
unprecedented challenges...challenges we haven't faced since our
nation's founding. And I believe that when it
comes to the management of financial assets, the rules of thumb
we learned from past experience are not likely to be very
helpful going forward.
Fortunately I've
known this for more than a few years now and clients who took my
advice during the recent market collapse in 2008 were able to avoid
the substantial declines that many others didn't
avoid. I honestly don't know how difficult it will be
for my clients to navigate the troubled waters ahead, but my
guess is, probably a little easier with my help than it would be for
them to do it on their own. But that's not a sure bet.
The
near economic collapse (and possible future collapse) of
our economy was engineered by those who claimed, and still
claim, that they know what they are doing and are working for
the best interests of their clients and the larger community.
I
wish that were true. But I don't believe it is.
I’ve
written extensively about issues that I think are important to
all of us; most of it having little to do with economic issues
or the management of
money per se, but enough to give you an idea of how we got into
this mess and why we're likely to be stuck here for quite a
while.
I
first saw in the year 2000 that the economic policies being
proposed by the Bush administration were not only ill conceived,
but entirely fraudulent. That's when I started writing
again; which is to say, when it became evident that not only was a future economic tragedy
being purposely engineered and advocated, but the administration was also
pursuing a panoply of other destructive policies, the implications of which, went
far beyond simple economics.
So my writing began to
encompass more than just economic issues. Nevertheless, the truth is, everything I wrote
about had, and still has, economic
consequences... for ordinary citizens, for the nation as
a whole,
and for the planet. For all intents and purposes,
despite the change of administrations, those ill conceived
policies continue unimpeded even to this day with
devastating consequences for a great many of us today and for our
posterity.
The
truth is, given what we already know about science, technology,
jurisprudence, economics, and ethics, our future could be brighter
than anything humanity has ever experienced. And yet the chance
that we will ever achieve our potential, given the state of consciousness that pervades our culture and
its institutions, seems to be fading fast. Knowing that we
already have the answers we need to succeed... it seems kind of foolish that we
lack the
will. That's where our focus needs to be...
— Mark
A. Goldman
About the author
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We are facing a period of unprecedented
uncertainly in various
aspects of life, including:
1.
global climate change.
2.
economic stagnation and/or
inflation.
3.
government corruption and mismanagement.
4.
lack of wisdom, leadership, and credible information coming from
our most critical institutions.
This
reality means that the future is not going to look like the past.
It will
now take inspired insight and imagination
to survey
the
landscape,
choose realistic goals,
identify opportunities, and navigate troubled waters ahead.
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