This weekend, I saw news coverage saying more Gen-Zers are going to church than their parents, with Catholic parishes that had dwindled bouncing back. (Of course, many other denominations are also benefitting from this trend.) Then there was a story about more Gen Z women choosing the path of marriage, children, and a focus on home and family over work. So I asked myself, is the pendulum swinging back?
I think the answer is yes, in part because the pendulum always swings back. Whenever things go too far to one extreme, there is a tendency to return to the norm. Not all the way to the original norm, but most of the way. So if things were in the center and swung too far left, they will return to being a bit left of center. And vice versa, when they swing to the right.
I expect we are seeing the recent pressure on young people to accept or even adopt non-traditional lifestyles is creating some pushback. It is driving them to church and into traditional marriages. I don’t care who you love or what two (or more) consenting adults do in the privacy of their home, but I don’t like it when any minority tries to force their views down the throats of the majority or when they try to brainwash children. That’s an example of the pendulum swinging too far.
The Election as an Example
I’d say the election of Donald Trump—which was also the loss of the election by leftist extremists—is an example of the pendulum swinging back. We had a do-nothing president who could barely walk and talk at the same time, who opened the borders of the country, and who embraced green energy to the extent that it made life more expensive for all of us. He was replaced by a president—love him or hate him—who is the opposite. The pendulum swung back.
And don’t try to tell me Kamala Harris lost because she was a black woman. She lost because she couldn’t string together two coherent sentences, cackled like an evil witch, and endorsed the same policies as the man she tried to replace. Policies the vast majority of Americans (at least outside of California and a few large cities) had seen fail. She was little more than Biden’s Mini-Me.
Economic Swings
Just as the political pendulum corrects itself so, too do the financial markets. We tend to evaluate the economy by how things are right now, or what we fear may be in the next few months, but the economy experiences swings, too. Since the end of WWII, which was 80 years ago, the U.S. has averaged a recession once every 6.5 years. They typically last 10 or 11 months, with the longest lasting 18 months.
This tells me not to fear a recession, but to plan for one. It’s going to come around sooner than later. And when you are in a recession, look at the bright side. Things will start to look up in a year, 18 months at worst, because the economic pendulum will swing back. This is why having a reserve fund of six months is a good idea. Like your food supply, you can stretch your dollars, even if it isn’t comfortable to do so.
I’ve also seen economic swings hit businesses and industries. That’s why successful investors buy low and sell high. (The theory is easy; picking the highs and lows is the hard part.) They expect the pendulum to swing back, and unless the rope from which it swings fails—known as bankruptcy—most businesses recover. We saw companies in the tech industry hire like crazy during and after the pandemic. Recently, they’ve been laying people off as the pendulum swings back. In a few years, they’ll probably be another hiring boom. Unless something stops the pendulum—and many would tell you AI is going to do that—things turn around.
AI and Job Losses
Many people look at AI and see job losses. If you are in an industry that might be affected, turn that into an opportunity. When the horse and buggy disappeared, it created a market for mechanics, oil drillers and refiners, gas stations, automobile builders and dealers, and all the services and products those industries required.
Meanwhile, horses remained a viable industry for a few: trainers and jockeys in the racing industry and people who catered to the wealthy “horse people.” Even when AI can send a robot to your house to do all your chores, there will be wealthy people who want to be waited on by other humans. There will also be paranoid people who want nothing to do with AI. Plus, there will experts who are needed to come fix things that AI screws up. And let me tell you, AI will screw things up. At least at the stage it is at now.
It’s all About Cycles
Look at the planet itself. We’ve had ice ages, which were followed by global warming, and the cycle repeated. Cycles often do. Don’t worry about cycles, plan for them. Prep for them.
Someone is going to read this and say, “Yeah, but there have been years without a summer.” True, but usually for a reason, like a volcano that sent dust into the sky. That’s an anomaly, but you can plan for that, too.
When you get to be my age, you have lived through many cycles. If you are smart, you’ve learned something from that. If you’re slow to pick things up, well, maybe it’s time to stop living in the moment and look at the world around you. Notice trends, both short ones and long ones. A smart, attentive person who gets ahead of the trend can do well compared to those that don’t. John D. Rockefeller said, “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” He meant a financial opportunity, although today politicians try to gain political opportunity by never letting a good crisis go to waste. I think I prefer Rockefeller’s approach.
Change can be disruptive, and not everyone reacts well to disruption. That’s another lesson that comes with age: change is inevitable. So while the pendulum swings back, it never retraces its steps in the same exact way. Change happens. Be flexible and adaptable rather than fearful and rigid. Those skills will serve you well as a prepper and in life.
