Apparently the world's banking system was on the brink of collapse a year or so ago. Stock markets fell, bonds plummeted, real estate sank and at one point it looked like personal savings were at risk. Anyone who was around at the time will tell you that things were rather frightening.
But it didn't collapse. The banking industry and the rest of the financial system are still here. The traders are still trading. The mortgage brokers are still broking. And the credit-default-swap writers are still writing. Banks are lending again and borrowers are borrowing again. And despite a lot of grumbling and raised eyebrows, bankers are getting bonuses again.
Quite a few folks suggested at the time that the financial system ought to be altered so that it's not capable of destroying itself quite so quickly again. But it's pretty hard to interpret the actual changes implemented around the world as having been anywhere near the scale of the financial crisis.
So who cares about that? Markets are rising, economic growth is picking up, and people even seem to be getting jobs again. Who can even really remember that there ever was a problem?
The reason we are all able to carry on investing and borrowing, forgetting about market reform and just behaving as if there never was a huge meltdown just the other day is the phenomenon of selective memory. We are really bad at remembering bad stuff and really good at remembering good stuff.
This is the reason that people get married four or five times, why gamblers keep walking into casinos and why anyone goes to Adam Sandler movies. We remember the one or two positive moments and forget the endless pain and anguish that surrounded them.
And it's a good thing, too. If our primitive ancestors had dwelled too much on the times they were attacked by sabre-tooth tigers and half their group were eaten, or the times they got so cold that they could hardly move, or the times that their mobile phones ran out of batteries right when they received that call they were waiting all day for, well they would have struggled to get out of bed in the morning.