Two glowingly positive articles about the state of humanity appeared in two separate publications at the end of December 2019. One — This Has Been the Best Year Ever — by columnist Nicholas Kristof was published on Dec. 28 in the New York Times. The other — We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously — by Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, appeared the same day in the Spectator. What a glorious note on which to end the decade.
In what seems like an instant later, the world has been turned upside down. The truly terrifying aspect of our new situation is that we don’t know much about this new virus, how long it will be a threat or what damage it will do to economies globally. The 2008 financial crisis, an experience that many investors now draw on for guidance in these uncertain times, was a near-catastrophe, but it didn’t involve the spread of deadly viruses.
During a recent interview, he said, “I told you many years ago, if you stick around long enough, you’ll see everything in markets. And it may have taken me to 89 years of age to throw this one into the experience.” And in a March interview, he said, “This is a terrible event that’s occurring … We don’t know how terrible. It may not turn out to be that big a deal when we get through, but it may turn out to be a very big deal, and we just don’t know.
Kristof and Riley were right: the advance of our civilization, especially in the past 250 years, has been nothing short of extraordinary for the average person. Now, as Buffett recently said, we face the unknown. During the 20th century, the world confronted what appeared at the time to be apocalyptic, insurmountable events. For example, the Spanish Flu epidemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It is estimated that about 500 million people, one third of the world’s population, became infected with this virus, which ultimately killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 deaths in the U.S.
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