https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/12/charles-hugh-smith/grey-swans-are-circling/

Grey Swans Are Circling

By Charles Hugh Smith

The lifestyle of a stable New Gilded Age is out of stock.

History is either “one damned thing after another”–a chaotic collection of random events–or there are connections between events that are not readily visible. The study of history includes both rooting around for more factual evidence to aid our understanding, and interpreting what is known–both the factual evidence and what people living at that time described and thought was happening.

Two recent events invite interpretation: the sudden collapse of Syria’s regime and the assassination of an American CEO in America’s financial capital. These can be viewed as unique one-off events of little future import or they can be viewed as watershed events, harbingers of a future far different than the present.

A systemic case can be made that the grey swans circling above us are harbingers of transformative change. What is a grey swan? A grey swan is an event that is known and possible to happen, but which is assumed to be unlikely to occur. The term derives from Nassim Taleb’s black swan theory, which describes an event that is unlikely but unknown. ......