The acceleration

If you are interested in business cycles, you may wonder what their duration could be. Two years ago, Deutsche Bank published a research note where they claimed that the business cycle has become shorter in recent years “because cycles were artificially long in what Deutsche dubs the ‘golden era’ from the early 1980s to the early 2000s” (Economist, 2011). Should you care about the length of the cycle? I guess so, as you are either personally involved over your assets or your pension funds are over their assets. If you are unlucky you start investing shortly before a bust. As the frequency of booms of busts rises your chances of hitting a bust rises as well. Good luck with that.

* I came to think of acceleration as I am on my way to Tokyo. Going to Japan means speeding up and slowing down at the same time. Georg Diez sent me a text by Pankaj Mishra on Japan’s tormented relationship with its modernity. Japan has always been very fast and very slow at the same time. The feeling you get in certain places is one of being in the 1970s and at the same time being in 2050. That makes it weird and exciting. The cycles in Japan are fast and slow. You have to think, fast and slow, as Daniel Kahneman has known for a long time.