Of course, red meat now comes in the form of electronic toys — mostly from China, Japan, and India. Keep the electronic toys coming, keep the borrowing channels open, and who knows how long the inevitable can be postponed?

So, you should neither try to predict the future nor let the madness of the crowd discourage you. Instead, relentlessly focus on the infrastructure of life —universal principles — and take actions accordingly. This is the secret to finding freedom — and happiness — in an unfree world, because universal principles will never fail to support you over the long term.

Old Charlie Dickens was right on target clear back in 1859 when he said, in the very first (and very long) sentence of his classic work A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

In other words, it was pretty much like any other time.

The same can be said of today. As I pointed out in Action!, crises come and go, but only one time in history is the world going to come to an end — and you won’t be around to remember it. That said, make it a point to spend most of your time on those things over which you have the most control, and, to the extent possible, don’t allow the madness of the crowd to distract you.