"EVERYONE HAS A PLAN UNTIL THEY GET PUNCHED IN THE MOUTH."--MIKE TYSON

Mohamed A. El-Erian, The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse (New York: Random House, 2016) ("The global financial crisis that shook virtually every country, government, and household in the world in 2008-09 gave way to a frustrating 'new normal' of low growth, social tensions--all despite massive policy interventions on the part of central banks and transformational technological innovations. "Now this new normal is getting increasingly exhausted. For those caring to look, signs of stress are multiplying--so much so that the path the goal economy is on is likely to end soon, and potentially quite suddenly. "As we approach this historic inflection point, unthinkable all become more common and insecurities will rise, especially as it becomes clearer that, rather than transition smoothy and automatically, the current path could give way to one of two very different new roads. The first premises higher inclusive growth and genuine financial stability. But, in stark contrast, the second would see us mired in even lower growth periodic recessions and the return of financial instability." Id. at xv-xvi. "Well, I would suggest that the global economy is approaching a three-way junction or, to be more exact, what the British call a T junction. The road that the economy is currently traveling will effectively come to an end soon. In doing so, it will yield to one of two quite different, truly contrasting alternatives: a materially better state of the world or a materially worse one. As you can imagine, the consequences for you are quite different. It really does matter, for both current and future generations, how this T junction turns out. And there is simply not enough information today to predict the outcome with sufficient confidence (that is the required mix of both high conviction and high foundation)." Id. at 176.).