Economists and Emotion
I was interested to read this article in the Chicago Tribune about the sentiment of the American public.
What particularly was interesting was that now economists are able to tell us what the emotions are that drive the sentiment of the public.
“There’s a great misunderstanding of what’s happened,” says economist Allan Meltzer. The main trouble, in his view, is not that Americans are suffering from weak or negative economic growth. It’s that they have suffered a loss of wealth, a very different ailment.”
The comment is right on…. but I think it goes beyond this. I think it is all about the fracturing of trust in the system. This is a major issue not just for the US but for the world. Fortunately there is still trust in the system in a lot of the world…. but for how long?