Saniel Bonder on the Economy - Part 2

Unusual Economic Uncertainty
Sep 10, 2010 10:15 AM ET

We'll start with a recap of the conclusions in the most recent post about our global financial and economic predicament. Its intractable mysteries have led eminent economists like Fed chief Bernard Bernanke, who should know what's going on, to mutter about the degrees of "unusual uncertainty" that continue to plague us in today's fitful recovery. 

It's not what we don't know that endangers us most, seems to me. It's what we don't know that we don't know. Even more, it's what we don't know even exists to be known. And, given our predilections, it's what each of us is ill-equipped to ever find out about, much less learn, know well, and be able to use in our own lives and in cooperation with fellow human beings.   That universal Achilles heel is what keeps me writing these blogs, using the proclamations, opinions, and admissions of experts in one of the world's eminent daily financial newspapers, Financial Times, and occasional other sources as fuel for these commentaries.   Though it's now many weeks old, another op-ed column in that early August Financial Times will be relevant for years to come. It was a stirring call to the west to "start living up to its own ideals" - to accept that we have now entered "the post-western world" and should move on from both "American denial" and "European soul-searching."   Read more