The result is not only a faster adjustment, but one that is potentially more synchronized, compressing changes into an even shorter time frame. This very rapidity with which the current adjustment is proceeding raises another concern, of a different nature. While technology has quickened production adjustments, human nature remains unaltered.
We respond to a heightened pace of change and its associated uncertainty in the same way we always have. We withdraw from action, postpone decisions, and generally hunker down until a renewed, more comprehensible basis for acting emerges. In its extreme manifestation, many economic decisionmakers not only become risk averse but attempt to disengage from all risk.