Assumptions we need to question now

My area isn’t geopolitics. I’ve been hesitating to opine about the horrible situation in Ukraine. It took a lot of people by surprise because Russia’s invasion flew in the face of so many assumptions we had been making. Now would be a good time to revisit some of them.

Like it or not, we’re in a space now where our ratio of assumptions to knowledge is terribly high. Human beings are terrible about handling assumptions — either we forget them altogether or we turn them into facts in our minds. Now might be a good idea re-assess the assumptions we’ve been making … and what we will do if they no longer hold.

Here are 10 to think about now:

1. BRICS would be exciting sources of global growth

Back in 2001, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Economist Jim O’Neil predicted that four countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — would provide rich rewards for those adventurous enough to invest in them. And you know what? He was right — for a while at least. The assumption that these four countries would be increasingly wealthy and westernized seemed to be working really well for the following decade. In 2010, South Africa was added to their number to have its acronym go from BRIC to BRICS.

While the end of the BRICS dominance has been clear for a while (Goldman Sachs…