Thursday, October 2, 2014

Cumulative Fragility

End Game for a comfort seeking society


People and "things" that never experience duress or adversity are extremely vulnerable to the effects of unanticipated systemic shocks. 

Which explains why this society went straight into the fetal position in 2008 and has remained that way ever since...
I never read it. I tend not to read about things that can be distilled in a free blog post or that otherwise seek to copyright commonsense.

As I said above, complex systems/organisms etc. need to be "tested" from time to time in order to build up resiliency and resistance. See, this is already annoyingly obvious. 

Nevertheless, our omnipotent central powers have set out to create the "perfect" economy. When I say "perfect", I don't mean good, as in one that creates prosperity for everyone - I mean one that merely meets the textbook criteria for never experiencing any amount of economic recession. 

Voila. 30+ years later and fragility has accumulated. Yes, again:


Cumulative Stress is not the same as Shock Trauma
The other key point I would make is that the de rigueur competitive lifestyle aka. "the rat race to nowhere" puts people under a very low intensity incessant stress that is very different than the type of duress experienced during short intense shocks. However, this repetitive stress syndrome essentially depletes the body and mind of its ability to deal with any major exogenous shocks. Adrenal fatigue is rampant today. 

A Bad Week to Stop Sniffing Glue
So, in summary. This society is still in shock from 2008 and has absolutely no capacity to deal with any type of major adversity. It's stressed out and maxed out on Prozac already. Yet, what comes next will make 2008 seem like a fucking picnic. 

This is cumulative fragility (AND Moral Hazard) visualized:
Moral Hazard is obvious - the Fed QE programs made hedging unnecessary, because there was no perceived downside risk.

In addition, the lack of volatility made hedging wholly unprofitable, hence fragility accumulated:


ALWAYS LOOKING FOR THE EASY WAY OUT IS THE HALLMARK OF THIS ENDANGERED SPECIES