by Jim Rickards, Daily Reckoning:

Is the world coming apart at the seams? It would seem so.

Of course, there are always wars going on somewhere and hot spots waiting to erupt. That’s the steady state of the world. But some periods are far more dangerous either because the conflicts are more intense, or there are more of them or both.

The best analytic approach in such situations is not just to compile a list of conflicts but to consider their interconnectedness and weigh the risks of escalation. Is it just another bad patch like the 1960s with Vietnam, or are we on the brink of something truly catastrophic like World War II?