Using long-term averages during a period of general rising US prosperity post WW2 skews our thinking.

This writer, like most financial writers these days, is anchoring to the past and not recognizing that the US has most likely entered into a new period of general decline. I like Ben; I read his articles and listen to his podcasts with Batnick pretty often, and they are almost always long term positive. And really, they are in the investing business so they pretty much have to be positive. If they start telling their clients that this is the end of investment as we once knew it, and the US will now be a smaller player on the world economic stage, their clients would run away.

I submit that the US will no longer enjoy the tailwinds we have enjoyed in the past, and this time it is probably different. I don’t see enough people in the US realizing this is happening unfortunately, so I’m sadly doubtful we can stop the slide. I’m with a group of mostly older, retired folks locally trying some things to get people to realize it’s happening, but it’s really hard to get through to the general population. And I get it— people are busy with their lives, and don’t have the time to sit around and ponder future general decline. But until we have mass marches here by 3.5% of the population, I fear we are not going to be able to turn this ship around.

Here’s a link from the BBC on the 3.5% protest figure:
bbc.com - It only takes of people to change the world

Most US born citizens have had it so good for so long, that we don’t seem to have the ability to imagine not being on the top of the world stage anymore. We are truly mostly fat and happy over here (relatively), so it’s difficult to get us to mass protest anything.

Maybe when the goods we rely on are either too expensive, or not even on the shelves, people will wake up? Hope so!