“Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.”
~ T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Man
Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:
Will the global economy be stronger or weaker in 2025 than it was in 2024?
The world puts up their hands, and shrugs – it’s a flip of the coin.
A 50/50 chance.
(source: visualcapitalist.com)
Apparently, odds are the economy could go either way.
So, it would seem the world is heading into New Year not with confidence, but with faith.
The pessimists and the optimists each reassuring themselves their ideas are what they should be…
Right.
Now, before I show you an important investment / economics lesson, let me tell you something even more obvious.
Everyone has their own idea about the world.
Sometimes those ideas are oddly peculiar (The kind of thing you ask,”Why would anyone think that?” But they do.)
Other times, ideas are shared by the masses.
And when ideas are shared by the masses, people move in the “same” direction. They take action based on the same idea.
Whether it is a good idea or bad idea depends on the outcome.
Students of economics like yourself may already be too familiar with the ideas of the masses because Charles McKay’s book ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.’
It is a classic in economic literature.
But now we are heading in a different direction. The point is: some ideas are shared by vast numbers of people.
For example, American exceptionalism, and triumphalism, which eventually emerged into the American Dream.
All of those ideas, when they came out of a person’s mind, or the Founding Fathers, or whomever… They had no real backing to them.
There was no “hard science” allowing a person to measure if the idea was right to begin with.
Is America the best?
Has America always win?
Did everyone really live the American Dream?
So, here’s what people were acting on…
Con Fide.
They were acting with faith the idea had power.
Then the world changed… for some!
In reality, probably only for a few.
This is how you become part of the few.
In his book, ‘How to Become Rich’, Felix Dennis (net worth $300 – $500 million) writes about the fallacy of the Great Idea.
He shows us what the difference is between acting con fide on an idea, and fulfilling an idea.
Dennis writes:
“In the real world, at least, ideas are not hogwash. But they are very unlikely to make you rich on their own…
If you never have a single great idea in your life, but become skilled in executing the great idea of others, you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Seek them out and make them work. They do not have to be your ideas. Execution is all in this record.
If, on the other hand, you spend your days thinking up and developing in your mind this great idea or that, you are unlikely to get rich. Although you are likely to make many others rich. That is usually the way of it. Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.”
So, tell me.
Is the idea of a money without backing, fiat money, a correct execution of an idea?
It works as money for awhile, but in good time it fails.
For the individual who realizes that they can begin to act con fide on a more concrete, sustainable, down-to-earth idea of what money is…
That person prospers.
Because they know the power of following a well-executed idea…
And whether or not a company or nation is acting on one.
