Wednesday, October 2, 2013

In other news (quieter but probably more important)

There are always quiet trends building up and wearing down.  Their quiet and gradual change makes them hard to detect but they are a major part of the changes always going on in the world.  See Hans Rosling for some of the longer term trends around the world.  Just Google his name.


The most eye-opening trend article I read was from Time magazine more than 3 years ago.  Don't worry: trends are slow-acting and an important trend today will still be important 5 years from now.


Here is a useful trend article from the Atlantic magazine:

Trends, quiet change and new facts about the world:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/the-10-stealth-economic-trends-that-rule-the-world-today/280107/


The reading I did years ago showed me that in dealing with trends and change, there is a kind of Gresham's law at work.  (Too many links in a post have run afoul of Google's anti-spam software before so I will not insert a link to the Gresham's law part of Wikipedia but I will note that it says that the idea that people hand off their questionable money and keep the good stuff for later was mentioned in Aristophanes's play 500 years before Christ.)  All that to say that good news doesn't make headlines but frightening items do.



--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety


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