“Winter is coming” – Ned Stark from “Game of Thrones”

As I sat and watched the Game of Thrones season finale last night, I felt a shiver up my spine. The people of King’s Landing in Westeros are oblivious to what is marching towards them – the army of the dead. And no matter the warnings given, it falls on deaf ears.

But Jon Snow gets it, and so do the few people that actually open their eyes…

How many laughed in his face when he begged for them to listen and see the larger picture. How many died from ignoring his warnings? How many times did we scream at our televisions in frustration?

Humans are amazing yet fickle things. We only want to see the good and ignore the bad. But it is only natural to follow the path of least resistance. Yet just because we don’t want to acknowledge something, or tell ourselves it could never happen, does not change the reality of it actually happening.

For instance, in Game of Thrones there is something called the Long Nightwhich was a multi-year sunless winter that almost ended life as they knew it.

Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation. Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts; and women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks…“―Old Nan to Bran Stark

What is interesting was what precedes the Long Night occurring, which are the ‘abnormally’ long summers. As quoted from the Westeros wiki, “At the beginning of A Game of Thrones Westeros has enjoyed an unusually long decade-long summer of peace and plenty[excess good period]…“

Thus, what was considered ‘boom’ years for the people of Westeros will be followed by the ‘bust’ years…

It reminds me of the masses that made fortunes from the ‘abnormal’ booming home prices in the early 2000’s, only to eventually lose everything during the 2008 financial meltdown.

One of the most brilliant, and underrated, economists and thinkers of the last 100 years , Ludwig Von Mises, wrote in his book Human Action, “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.” I highly recommend reading his work.

Since 2008, the remedy for all our woes has been to extend more credit, pile on more debt, and print more money.

But our “Long Night” is coming…

Read the rest here and see what to expect going forward..