In the last post, we laid out both the U.S. imperative (keep the status quo and improve it if possible) and the Chinese imperative (make a successful economic transition to a developed, wealthy economy). We also outlined how China has changed its strategy from what has been so successful over the past 40 years, and we closed with a teaser on the U.S. response.

We closed yesterday’s post with the conclusion that the confrontation to watch is between China and the U.S. and that, at least for the next decade, the conflict is likely to be economic and not military. This is often characterized as a trade conflict. Indeed, that is how it is playing out in the headlines. In fact, however, trade is a symptom and not a cause.

We closed the last post in this series on the note that while the now world (i.e., the world we live in) has benefited enormously from the economic freedom that came with the new world, changes are underway that might limit that freedom—to our economic detriment. As politics comes to the fore again, economics may once again take second place.

As I try to do a couple of times a year, let’s take a break and think about all the things we have to be grateful for. It has been proven that being grateful is one of the best ways to make your life better—to be both happier and more successful.

The last post in this series was about the old world, one that was dominated and defined by politics both between and within nation-states. Indeed, the nation-state was the defining entity of the period, with political borders determining economic relationships. But even within nation-states, economic actors were largely constrained by political forces, in the form of laws, regulations, and borders. It was a much smaller world from the perspective of most companies. Your competitors came from your industry, in your country. You knew them, they knew you, and you were all pretty much playing by the same rules and subject to the same constraints.

I closed my post two days ago with the observation that the now world—the world optimized around economics—has changed significantly from what came before it. It really became different this time, within the lifetime of most of the readers of this blog.

I want to take a break today from the next world discussion to check in on the stock market. Since the pullback in October and the bounce after the midterms, we have seen a slow and continuous decline. I have been hearing more questions and concerns, so let’s take a look at what is going on.

As we discussed yesterday, the world is always changing. But in the past couple of years, there has been a growing sense that the changes we’re seeing now go beyond what is normal. From an investment and economic perspective, it seems these changes might be getting systemic enough that, over the next decade or so, it really will be different this time. To understand what might happen next, though, it is important to understand where we are starting from—as the next world will inevitably evolve from the now world.

Now that I am back from the Commonwealth National Conference, I want to spend the next week or so outlining the ideas behind my speech there. The genesis of my presentation was the hundreds of conversations I had with financial advisors and clients over the preceding months. All had different questions and concerns—ranging from whether the U.S. was inevitably declining to whether the U.S. was the only safe place to invest. But over time, a common core concern emerged: the sense that somehow things were changing, as well as the growing worry that the answers we have relied on no longer fit in the new world we are moving into.

This week, the big news was the Democrats’ takeover of the House of Representatives and the subsequent large bounce back in the stock market. Put together, it sounds like I am implying a causal connection. I suppose I am—but not the obvious one.