To say that we are living in a time of uncertainty is, really, to add nothing new to any discussion that you are a part of. You can flip through the television network news broadcasts, or shuffle through any number of articles online, and find many people discussing the "uncertain" economic times that we are living in. In most cases, however, the analysts who make their commentary within these pieces, are reasonably "sure" about some things. "The economy is in shambles because of X, and Y is likely to happen," or "'So and so' must do Y in order to prevent X". These people all seem to have some ideas in their head of what might happen, and why it might happen.
The real uncertainty, as far as I can tell, lies in the minds of the general public, who rely on the economic experts in order to understand the present state of affairs. The analysis that I have encountered, in recent weeks, from mainstream news organizations, have covered the entire spectrum from, "we are going to re-live the Great Depression", to "get ready for the economic recovery that is only a matter of months away". Do you accept the "pessimistic" view, do you accept the "optimistic" view, or do you adopt a seemingly "balanced" view and suppose that we are somewhere between these two extremes?
In many circumstances, choosing an intermediate view between two extremes is prudent. Using an economic example, consider the financial prospects of an average, university educated, middle-class individual, in a normal economic climate. Assuming this person is average in every way for her demographic, hard working, and reasonably intelligent. Now should we suppose that this person is likely to wind up poor and destitute, ridiculously wealthy, or of moderate wealth. The natural response is to assume that the third choice is on target, and this seems reasonable. Given our knowledge of the significant characteristics of the individual, and the environment that she is living in, we feel confident in predicting the outcome. In the current economic setting, however, there is little reason to feel confident that any of the media experts know how to characterize the state we are presently in, and thus predict where things are going - at least it is very difficult to form a conclusion about which ones are possessive of this knowledge. So few of these people were able to characterize the economic state of things a year ago, and predict where things would go, so how do you put any confidence in their assessment of the current situation?
I just find the whole thing perplexing. The only conclusions I can draw from the information is that I have little confidence in any of the media economic analyst in particular. Conventional wisdom seems to say that things are likely to get better in a couple of years, so that is likely the hypothesis that most reasonable people will subscribe to. But, it is hard to hold that position with any degree of confidence.
