If you live in an earthquake zone, small earthquakes are your friends. If you live in a healthy society and healthy economy, various crises are your friends.
Living in an earthquake zone you appreciate earthquakes. As long as they are small. And as long as you feel them regularly. This is because they come from the earth as it makes adjustments.
When you feel no small earthquakes you grow fearful. Because the calmness signals that pressure is building. The earth is not making small adjustments. And so the pressure that builds will eventually force a big adjustment, a major and damaging earthquake.
Societies and economies work the same way. Various crises are like small earthquakes. They are the signs that the society and the economy are adjusting. If they do not suffer a lot of crises they are not adjusting. And so pressures build. And so they eventually suffer the equivalent of a big quake. Perhaps a revolution. Or a coup. Or a collapse.
Notice any crises lately? Maybe in Europe? Maybe in our banking system? Maybe with our national debt? Maybe in our economy? Maybe in our housing and mortgage areas? A new crisis rolls into town every other week. It’s as if an army of soap opera writers creates them.
They hurt, these crises. But they are good for us. Because they relieve pressure. They are the signs that we are adjusting. Without such crises we will fail to adjust. And something massive and possibly violent will follow.
Why have the dictatorships crashed in the Middle East lately? The regimes stood rigid against millions who demanded change.
Companies fail for this reason. Relationships too. Families fall apart. Because they stand rigid, brittle, opposed to changes, adjustments.
Soviet communism collapsed. An immense system that ruled hundreds of millions simply fell apart. Because it would not allow adjustments. Its rulers were as flexibile as rock. Cuban communism is an abject failure. Because for fifty years its leaders refused to allow adjustments. Finally, after five decades, the Castro brothers are allowing people to buy and sell their homes. Sweet guys.
Chinese communists have been more flexible than the Soviets and Cubans. They have allowed adjustments: private property, private farming, open markets. These adjustments served to ease pressures that had built up. China’s leaders may allow even more adjustments, and the country may continue to prosper.
Indian bureaucrats relieved some of the stranglehold they had on that country’s society and economy. This relieved pressures.  It has encouraged economic growth that has benefited hundreds of millions.
So many companies in the West have gone bankrupt because their managements and workers did not adjust to the changes in their markets. The EU quakes on its foundations today because the bureaucrats who run it have rigidly ignored the cries of people they rule.
Successful companies, marriages, individuals, societies, economies and families adjust. My point? Don’t let all the crises you witness get you down. Many have silver linings.
From Tom ... as in Morgan.                  

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