The Wall Street Waltz: 90 Visual Perspectives, Illustrated Lessons From Financial Cycles and Trends, Revised and Updated Edition

Conclusion

People are scared of lots of things—federal deficits, the drug crisis, wars, escalating crime rates, even Wall Street. You should know by now that not much of what scares people is really worthy of fear. The financial world won't come to an end soon due to factors like these or any others. There are real problems to face in life and always have been. But they are the kinds we've always faced and lived with.

You're not going to lose all your money in the market, for example, because of a financial crisis caused by the deficit. You're much more likely to lose money if you pay too dearly and then panic and sell out after the subsequent crash that always follows excessive optimism. People do that all the time without the aid of massive societal dislocations. Wall Street and your own hysteria are perfectly capable of providing you with all the dislocations imaginable, all of them based on myths and mirages.

The Wall Street Waltz has gone on for centuries, through wars, revolutions, famines, and inflations. It's gone on through explorations, scientific discoveries, communist and Nazi threats, depressions, and Great Depressions. It's gone on all around the world in boom-bust cycles and with a rhythm all its own. Wall Street doesn't dance for politicians or kings or journalists or you or me. It dances for itself. And it will keep going on dancing, largely as it has, for the foreseeable future. Your only real choices are whether or not you want to be part of the dance, and if ...