Is “Back to Normal” What We Really Want?

We all like to believe that things will go “back to normal” in the near future, but might it be worth asking how normal things were to start with?

Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash

In Economic Principles, Ray Dalio shows how life has been growing progressively worse over the last 20 years for such a large segment of society. In “Our Biggest Economic, Social, and Political Issue”, he highlights in detail how 60% of Americans are struggling with, amongst other things, issues like rising inequality, stagnant wage growth, loss of job security and barriers to wealth creation.

He also dives into the challenges facing millennials who will never afford to own a house, and the fact that trust in both media and government are at all-times lows. When you add in the scale of projected job displacement from AI and robotics advancements and what that means for large sections of today’s workforce, there’s a lot to be concerned about.

These issues are not just being faced within the US — the growing populist movement around the globe, from Europe to South America, is indicative of a world reacting to these same issues. This represents a socio-economic challenge of immense proportions that was already in place at the start of this year, before COVID-19 arrived. When you add in…