WHY THE WORLD ISN'T ENDING

Ok...my friend Ross told me about a month ago that the world was going to go to hell in a hand-basket. After Monday (Lehman Brothers & the ML/wall street incidents), Ross called me up and said, "See...I told you. It is starting."

I spent some of the day Monday thinking about this...since I am a post-apoc freak and am very ready to roam the wasteland looking for the scrapes of the past just to get by. Hell...I am actually looking forward to the post-apoc...no more credit card debt, wearing cool outfits like squirrel-skin pants and used hockey equipment. I watched The Road Warrior a hundred times and know the ins-and-outs of scrounging for petrol. So I took what Ross said to heart...maybe this was the beginning of the new world...the reforming of society.

I will say...people seemed scared. All this talk about a global economic fall, that will destroy the financial markets as we know it. But, the more I thought about it the more I realized that this is just paranoid investor bullshit. I am not saying that I am ignorant to the economic woes of the country...I see that we are in hard times. But...a "the world is going to end" situation, it is not. Here is why:

1) For society to truly change you need a fast UNREPAIRABLE event. Money and businesses, although they all do something or make something can be replaced very easily by another. Also the rich of the world...we reinvent the game to stay rich...they always have and always will.

2) Something has to dramatically effect the population within a matter of months...this isn't achieved by economics...this is done by natural disaster, sickness, war, famine, or sudden lack of transportation of food.

3) Also...the "event" that changes everything can't be a...lets see how the government will help. When it happens, it will be so fast and large scale that there won't be enough time to do anything.

4) So...to everyone freaking out, the market will correct itself, it always does. Housing prices will go up and down in cycles for hundreds of years. The fun thing about economics is that the cycles involved tend to work themselves out.