Economic Recovery: Time is on Your Side

By Roger Nusbaum | December 01, 2008 | 12:19 PM | 2 Comments

Over the weekend I stumbled across this news update from Iceland noting that Prime Minister Geir Haarde will not step down in the face of the financial crisis and that while 2009 will be bad for Iceland's economy there should be recovery in 2010.

I've been writing about Iceland as an investment destination for several years now thinking that among other things it would become more globally relevant and that has been the case as we all know much more about Iceland than we used to but I was not expecting the increased awareness to come about because of a monumental collapse. 

This post is not about whether you should or should not invest in Iceland but about Haarde's comment that a recovery should start in 2010. Even if he is wrong about Iceland in 2010 other countries will start to recover in 2009. We are now in the last month of 2008. 2010 is only 13 months away, which is not much time. 

There is no doubt that what ever happens with the crisis, foreclosures, slowdown, corporate failures and anything else will hurt a lot of people but not most people. This leaves a foundation for people not directly impacted to recover and hopefully offers hope to those who are affected but for all the ink spilled and worry devoted we are still talking about a relatively short period of time. 

Other countries have imploded financially in the last 20 years including Norway and Sweden and both came back stronger than they were and Iceland can probably do the same but it may take time.

The time for recovery both in the global economy and world stock markets is beyond our control. It will happen on some sort of time table that will be better than hoped for or worse than expected, but it will happen.

As I was working on this post news came of official recession declaration. So, slowdown into recession and then a new cycle and again the timeline will either be comfortable or uncomfortable but it will happen. As the timing is beyond our control it makes no sense to worry about the timing. It makes more sense to focus on things within your control like debt management, investment discipline and common sense.

bravo Finally, someone who isn't fake fortune telling in order to get ratings! Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008/12/09 - 5:58am » reply |