My worldview was prior to near-zero interest rates but the bulk of my career has been in the 2010s. Mine was: you work hard and others and yourself recognize va

My worldview was prior to near-zero interest rates but the bulk of my career has been in the 2010s. Mine was: you work hard and others and yourself recognize value. Heh ... it didn't work during the last decade and it is my own naivete that led me to think that way. My view is purely anecdotal though. I know others had different experiences. It took me a long time to learn that motivators for executives, shareholders, etc. were different than having a necessarily productive workforce. I can't help but say this is just my own experience and what I read though: cheap money seems to be really influential. I worked in a place for a long time that kept buying other companies with access to cheap credit lines and plenty of willing investors. I am not sure if that correlates to how little we were producing ourselves (that is, if there was a corporate strategy of buying companies precedes a product strategy.) However, this strategy would immediately stop when interest rates would jump. I am too scared to speculate though and only walk away with a better sense of when red flags like this start to raise. Maybe there will be different things to look out for though when these influences are not present. However, I am thinking that maybe the return to "work hard and you'll be seen" will sort of come back again. Well, hopefully for myself it would. Seeing others recognize and value what I did is really encouraging.