I suspect what’s actually happen is that many of us are really, really keen to be living though dramatic and important times. We want to believe that now is a watershed, that this is An Age Of Something, that we live in Interesting Times. So we leap on extremely common occurrences (recessions, scandals) and pronounce them epoch-making. I guess this has always happened. But for some reason, of late, the collapsists seem to have been particularly vigorous and gleeful. They seem desperate for the collapse of some banks and some industries to equal the end of civilisation. Now, maybe there are still large systemic things happening under the surface that will create fundamental change but I bet, in 5 or 10 years time, I’ll still be keeping money in a bank, bankers will still be getting large bonuses and people in America will still be making cars.
