Nothing is symmetrical in Economics (interest, money, currencies, stock)

[Phil P]

I think one of the fundamental wrong assumptions people innately have is assumed symmetry in economic matters. Economics is the abstraction and modeling of decision, and with graph charts and thought experiments it's tempting to assume that the opposite effect will yield an inverse result. But that doesn't happen.

To start, when a person receives money, they react differently and use a different part of their brain than when they lose it. Collectively, this manifests in "animal spirits", which is why markets go up differently than how they go down. There's no sine wave activity in stock graphs over time, if anything it usually looks more sawtoothed. Or take interest rates, how the economy reacts to falling rates is very different from what happens when they rise. This seems to be true for every macroeconomic phenomenon - asymmetry.

So, when looking at all these matters occupying peoples mind at present: the housing market, inflation, demographic and labor force changes, cryptocurrencies, working from home etc... mentally you have to model 2 situations, what happens during normal up periods and what happens during down runs. Nobody can predict on the dot what will happen when the tables turn, but it's safe to say that it WON'T be a mirror effect.

[Avondalist]

If the degrowth people get their way there will be a lot of new economics to learn.

[Phil P]

Originally Posted by Avondalist

If the degrowth people get their way there will be a lot of new economics to learn.

Exactly. It won't just unwind the way it wound up. And there's no real models for going the other way, all historical data in economics is based on what happened when things grew.