Ignore the headlines

The global economy is on the road to hyperinflation and risks ‘societal collapse’ if soaring prices are not brought under control.That’s the considered view of Wall Street billionaire Paul Singer, founder of hedge fund Elliott Management.In a letter to clients, Singer says the world economy faces an “extremely challenging outlook’ and rocketing prices could end in ‘global societal collapse and civil or international strife’.Elliot Management is influential and when Singer speaks, markets listen.He has a point when blaming today’s rampant inflation on “dishonest” central bankers who loosened monetary policy too far, and are blaming others for the results.As the era of cheap money comes to an abrupt close, amid rapid interest rate hikes and a form of reverse money printing known as quantitative tightening, Singer is not the only one worried.Hard times always bring out the doomsayers, and you can find their apocalyptic warnings everywhere these days (but especially the internet). Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer is the latest in a long line of doomsayers (Image: Getty)Bank of England governor has just told us that former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget was hours away from triggering financial meltdown.In October, we were warned that a 1929-style market meltdown would strike before the end of the month.Also last month, French bank Credit Suisse was rumoured to be on the brink of bringing the banking system down.In April, Nobel prize winning economist Nouriel Roubini issued dire warnings of the ‘growing stagflationary storm’, caused by food shortages, supply-chain disruptions, ageing societies, climate change and public health disasters.Roubini also threw in the war in Ukraine, a nuclear Iran, Chinese invasion of Taiwan and North Korean nuclear brinkmanship for good measure.There’s a reason they call him Dr Doom.READ MORE: Hard to believe, but there’s also some good news amid the gloomLast year, we were assured that the biggest crash in world history would destroy shares, property, gold and Bitcoin.Before that, Covid was the culprit.In 2016, Deutsche Bank was about to blow up the banking system. In 2011, it was the euro. And in 2008, well, to be fair it almost happened.Yet every time I popped out to check, society was still standing. My local Costa Coffee was still serving (which is my benchmark).I don’t want to underplay today’s problems. We live in difficult times, but then life is difficult.So why are we so prone to panic today?DON’T MISS:Winter energy bills to plunge as ‘world’s best country’ races to UK… [LATEST]Britons heading into the ‘perfect storm’ after ‘awful’ BoE forecast [WARNING]’Matt Hancock could be the next national treasure’ [INSIGHT] North Korean nuclear missile launch: admittedly, life is scary (Image: Getty)For the last 30 years, every time the global economy ran into trouble, central bankers led by the US Federal Reserve bailed us out.The Fed saved the day after the dot.com crash in 2000, 9/11 in 2001, the financial crisis and the early days of the Covid pandemic.This sent a message to investors that whenever stock markets fall, central bankers would hold their hands. It was a green light to take on yet more risk by piling into tech stocks and bitcoin.Charles White Thomson, chief executive at Saxo Markets UK, calls it ‘nanny finance’, as central bankers stepped in to ‘make things better’.It has created ‘a generation of investors with a dependency on being financially bailed out or rescued’.Now the comfort blanket of endless fiscal and monetary easing has been withdrawn, and we don’t like it.Unfortunately, we have to get used to it.The next year or two will be tough and the government will need to help the most vulnerable.This does not mean society is about to crash and burn, so don’t get too distracted by the doom.We seen worse and survived.