As expected, resolution of the Cypriot crisis went down to the wire, and disaster was just barely averted.  In addition, the widely-anticipated shutdown of the U.S. government scheduled for this Wednesday has also been averted, but only to increase the importance and risk of the next debt ceiling increase in a few months.  The European financial crisis is like the American budget crisis, lurching from one crisis to the next.  The world is understandably exhausted with crisis fatigue.

Warren Buffett is fond of saying he has no idea where the stock market will be next week, but he does know where it will be in ten years — UP!  I think it is more like a terrorist attack, i.e., they only need to be successful once.  Even one crisis can be devastating — remember Lehman in 2008!  We have avoided the worst-case scenario on every crisis since then.  But, is there another crisis or “black swan” out there?  Of course, there is!

As English poet Samuel Johnson said . . . “nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.”  But, he did not say that only a hanging can focus the mind.  It is possible to plan ahead and still assume an occasional disaster.  A cavalier shrug-of-the-shoulders at risk only works in the short run, like a hanging.