This is from the NYT – Morning Briefing. I believe the Q&A is with Ron Lieber.
Will the U.S. economy bounce back to where it was before, or do you expect lasting changes?
If we continue to believe that capitalism and market economics are the right way to structure our country, then there probably ought to be at least some way our economic activity will revert to some level of normalcy. I would not believe anybody who is trying to predict when that will be.
You’ve written in the past couple of months that despite the tumult in the stock market, most people should pretty much sit still. Is that still the case?
All the best economic science tells us that if — and it’s a big “if” — you’re willing to stay invested in stock for decades and decades, if you just sit still more or less, keep putting money in at regular intervals, and sell some stock when stock prices get too high and buy some stock when the prices fall, you will do better and earn more than most professional brokers.
Now, that’s a science-based answer — it’s not quite a behavioral-science-based answer. I recognize that there are people who have never been psychologically tested in this way.
It would seem the bottom line answer is if you have faith in our market economy and democracy, things will eventually return to ‘normal’.
Right now, we may not know what ‘normal’ will look like, but we will get there.
The bigger challenge will be when and that is the big known, unknown.