A year and a half into the most aggressive rate tightening cycle in decades, the economy remains stronger than many prominent forecasters predicted, with strong employment and enough ambient expansion to keep inflation alive. We’re still a long way from doomsday territory.

Granted, the world can theoretically lurch from what Jay Powell calls welcome and surprising resilience to an apocalyptic 2008-style collapse. A meteor could hit Wall Street. The oceans could boil. The credit markets could freeze over. Employers could suddenly decide to lay off millions of workers.

From a statistical point of view, a lot of extreme things could happen in an instant. But in the real world, there’s usually a gradual transition between “perfect” and “awful.” To get from one extreme to the other, you need to spend a little time in the “pretty good” zone . . . and along the way, anyone who’s paying attention will be able to notice signs of deterioration.

That’s just how the world works. Any object moving in one direction needs to slow down and stop before it starts moving in the other direction. The economy operates by similar rules. While it can lurch to a halt when neglected or actively starved, it still needs to slow down before it stops.

And the bigger the economy, the more time and force it takes to change its direction. The U.S. economy represents about a quarter of all transactions, all work, all money flowing around the world. Even if some gigantic meteor collided with that system, smaller economies around the world would probably register a bigger hit.

A few years ago, that meteor hit. We called it a pandemic. Suddenly everyone in the world was told to restrict their movements or even stay at home. As if on cue, the U.S. unemployment rate shot up beyond 14% . . . one in seven people in the work force lost their jobs. That’s a staggering 21 million jobs evaporating in 60 days.

It happened overnight. But it took that sudden universally contagious disease to make it happen. That was the cosmic shock to the system. If not for that, the economy would probably have spent much of 2020 on track, keeping people employed and making money.

Here’s the thing. When the Fed saw that cosmic shock coming, suddenly interest rates dropped to zero. The foot came off the brake and hit the gas. Maximum forward acceleration. They steered out of the stall.

The economy came close to shutting down. It didn’t. The world didn’t end overnight.

Nearly four years later, we’re still here. Corporate earnings have gone down and up and down again. Now they’re on the verge of coming back up. But throughout the cycle, the companies themselves have always avoided the kind of cliff that they rolled over in 2008.

If the Fed sees a cliff coming, they’ll take their foot off the brake. Jay Powell already says he’s paying extremely close attention. “Doing too much could also do unnecessary harm.” He wants a slowdown, not a stop.

And a slowdown is a relative thing. An incremental change. Moving away from “perfect” but not necessarily verging into “bad” territory. Goldilocks might find one bowl too hot because it feeds inflation and the other too cold. Neither is ultimately good for investors.

But Goldilocks also needs to eat. Even if the porridge is a little too hot or a little too cold for comfort, there’s probably one bowl that’s both tolerable and nutritious.

There’s always a company that’s growing, even in the coldest economic environment. A smart investor doesn’t worry too much when nothing looks perfect. We’re busy hunting the companies that are closest to perfect . . . or at least the ones that are the farthest away from awful.

Sometimes that’s a limited list. In the last month, 71% of all stocks have lost ground. This week alone, all but one of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” names that dominate the NASDAQ lost money for shareholders. Tesla (TSLA) practically crashed, destroying about $120 billion in paper wealth in the process.

But unless the world is ending, Big Oil is unlikely to go broke. Neither is Big Food or Big Pharma or Big Soap. These companies are mature now, woven into the framework of our lives. That’s why Exxon (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) and Procter & Gamble (PG) look so attractive right now, along with McDonalds (MCD) and Coca-Cola (KO) and Pepsi (PEP) and Abbott Labs (ABT).

We made money buying ABT calls this week. There’s always a trade that works. And Goldilocks needs to eat! The only wrong answer revolves around assuming that the world is dominated by extreme scenarios.