The barrister writes: Just in case you thought you weren’t doing very well, Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and co-author of “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke,” wrote in 2003:

“This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce.” Remember the “J-curve” theory?

Hm. Yes.

In abstract, the idea is that people’s expectations of future events are self-manifesting in the negative and the positive. When people think things will get worse they will, until everyone figures things can’t get any worse, so they don’t. Eventually people believe things will get better and, Lo!, they do. Usually much better than they were before.

In the mean time, a lot of people will get hurt and I’m still burnt out and bored.