A recession-free economy is neither an entitlement nor, truth be told, desirable: The “wisdom of crowds” is real but even markets make mistakes and recessions, aka corrections, are, by definition, constructive. Even so, the modern economy’s rhythms are much less alarming than any previous generation could have imagined.

If return is roughly proportional to risk–after all, that’s why people, especially the young, are encouraged to put retirement funds into equities rather than government bonds–perhaps growth is too.

I thought that middle- and working-class Americans accept a greater degree of economic turbulence than people in structured economies like Europe’s or Japan’s, and in return we enjoy greater long-term prosperity. That would seem a reasonable social contract for a nation of immigrants. (Nevertheless, the modern acceptable level of turbulence has been well short of economic darwinism.) If we’re not operating that way anymore, we should at least be open about the change and its consequences–who loses and who benefits, overall and in particular–over a decade and longer.

This is in one of the better local economies in the US where local wisdom is that we are buffered from much of the travails of economic downturns.