"THE NEW NEW NORMAL"

I remember after the "Crash of 2008" everyone started to use the slogan "THE NEW NORMAL."  It started with the knowledgeable, Crescenzi, Vice President of Pimco who runs the largest bond fund of the world.  But it wasn't a term for any of us to be happy about.  It was always attached to accepting something that we didn't want or like.  The slogan was a way of saying "Sorry folks but this is how it is now."  It is never attached to something truly wonderful.  And why is that?  Why is the NEW NORMAL always something we have to just swallow? 

NORMAL: Conforming to the standard or serving to fix a standard. 
STANDARD: Something considered by an authority or general consent as a basis of comparison. 

El-Erain, also from Pimco, described the NEW NORMAL as an uncomfortable acceptance of high unemployment for young people, even those that just graduated with nice university degrees (and a load of debt) and poor prospects for those getting ready for their much anticipated retirement.  I remember Suzi Orman and Jim Krammer telling everyone that they needed to move in with family members, as the NEW NORMAL was upon us.  Here are a few others:
     NPR: living with 2% growth verses 3%.
     ABC: states "Americans must adapt to the New Normal" of layoffs, recession, foreclosures, paycuts no job security, and living cheap.
     NYPost: cites President Obama is a believer in the New Normal---(not sure what that means).
     CNN: reports the New Normal is uncertainty, renting instead of owning, saving over spending, and staycations instead of vacations.
     Others: state the new Normal is financial instability and crisis.

You get the idea.  The New Normal was not something we wanted long-term.  All of these things suck!  So when Foreign Policy reported this week that El-Erain "welcomes us to THE NEW NEW NORMAL which is to say that our children will be worse off than we are "economically, financially, politically, and socially."  The NEW NEW NORMAL is defined as worse political problems, a greater sluggishness in the economy, more debt and deficit, companies more risk-averse especially long-term, more fringe parties on left & right vying for a place to run the future, more anger and more violence.  He concludes his article with "The warning bells are ringing, and they are ringing loudly."  Thus, the NEW NEW NORMAL IS MUCH WORSE THAN THE NEW NORMAL. 

But it is as if we must accept all this bad news as normal.  If we all start thinking this is normal it will be normal because we will make it such by believing it is.  Normal is general consent to a new standard as fixed.  Let's not accept normal.  Let's not conform to normal.  Let's dare to say NO! to the New New Normal.