Another Wave Comes, Another Wave Goes

Spend a day at the beach watching the ocean. Settle in with a big umbrella and a tall cool drink. Pay attention to the ocean. What do you see? Waves ... and tides. The level of the water goes up as a wave crests, and down as the wave recedes. Some waves are bigger, some come a little slower, but they all form a repeating pattern. Now add the tides, and you see the waves as small oscillations superimposed on bigger slower repeating patterns. It's all fairly predictable.

Now, imagine that time slows w-a-y d-o-w-n... You see the water rising. It just keeps coming. Will it ever stop? Will I drown? Then, at the last moment, the water recedes. Phew, relief. Oh No, all the water is going away! The fish will die. I'll have no food, no ocean, no pretty beach, I'm losing everything!

After a relaxing day at the beach, let's talk economics. Because the repeating patterns of economic cycles have periods of years and decades, it is oh so easy to forget that prosperity and confidence - personal, corporate, and national - rise and fall like waves and tides. Great times never last, and hard times never last.

But suppose that this wave isn't just part of a cycle? Suppose that this wave is the tsunami? Maybe, but the odds of an economic tsunami are like the odds of rattlesnake bite in Manhattan. Sure it could happen, but...

What do you do when the tide goes out? You get a whiff of that "low tide smell" and you get to wander the seabed harvesting some tasty shellfish from under the sand. You know that the water will return, so you relax and enjoy your day.

Economic prosperity WILL return as surely as the waves and tides. Only the exact timing is uncertain. Nationally, this is a time to spend lavishly creating jobs and restoring personal and business confidence. Spending now does NOT mean we should or will spend when the tide is high. Government spending and taxation also run in long term cycles, hopefully in cycles that mitigate the economic cycles rather that amplifying them.

Personally, this is a time to gather the fruits of the sea that are only available when the tide is out. And, as always, this is a time to relax and enjoy life.