We would all like to see things get back to normal—whatever normal means to you. It could be a job with a sense of security, a retirement fund that is achieving robust gains, or a house that is appreciating steadily year after year. But many observers doubt that the current downturn is just another business cycle adjustment. In a McKinsey Quarterly article published in March, Ian Davis, the worldwide managing director of McKinsey & Company, said we are witnessing a “restructuring of the economic order” and we are not likely to return to the normal of recent years. He called this the “new normal” that will be “shaped by a confluence of powerful forces—some arising directly from the financial crisis and some that were at work long before it began.”
