Confluence

If history could talk, the first thing it would say is, “Enjoy the tranquil stretches because they’re always temporary.”

The past few years were, in retrospect, a case in point, one of those relatively drama-free periods that lull the unwary into accepting steady-if-unremarkable progress as the new normal. Lubricated by trillions of dollars of new currency – and some blatant government lying about inflation and unemployment – investors took stocks, bonds and real estate up to record or near-record levels, leaving just about anyone with a long position in just about any mainstream asset feeling like things might be okay after all.

Then a bunch of things happened to make “steady progress” the least likely scenario for 2014. In more or less chronological order:

• The Fed threatens to check the junkie into rehab

• Hot money deserts the developing world

• The US threatens to bomb the Middle East some more

• The debt ceiling game of chicken begins

• Chaos ends when the Fed refills the syringe