Sunday. February 22, 2009. I don’t typically read the New York Times, especially the Business Section. As I was finishing up my meditation session this morning, I had a flash of a NY Times headline saying “You create your own reality”. I thought I’d go online and see what the headline today said. Well, it didn’t say that, but I figured I’d been guided to the page for some reason, so I gave a glance to see what was calling me. I found it way down at the bottom in the Economic View: Can talk of Depression lead to one?
I thought how timely for the mainstream media to pick up on this. I mean, if it’s in the New York Times, then there’s a whole bunch of people who will take it as gospel and maybe do something to change their thinking patterns. Here’s the article, all italics for emphasis are mine.
How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters by Robert J. Shiller
PEOPLE everywhere are talking about the Great Depression. This Depression narrative, however, is not merely a story about the past: It has started to inform our current expectations. The attention paid to the Depression story may seem a logical consequence of our economic situation. But the retelling, in fact, is a cause of the current situation — because the Great Depression serves as a model for our expectations, damping what John Maynard Keynes called our “animal spirits,” reducing consumers’ willingness to spend and businesses’ willingness to hire and expand. The Depression narrative could easily end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The popular response to vivid accounts of past depressions is partly psychological, but it has a rational base. We have to look at past episodes because economic theory has never offered a complete account of the mechanics of depressions.
This isn’t the first time that the Great Depression has become an active story. It also was heard during the recession of 1981 and 1982. To understand the story’s significance in driving our thinking, it is important to recognize that the Great Depression itself was partly driven by the retelling of earlier depression stories. In the 1930s, there was incessant talk about the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s.
Robert J. Shiller is professor of economics at Yale and chief economist at MacroMarkets LLC. He and George A. Akerlof are the authors of “Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism” (Princeton University Press). Published: February 21, 2009 at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/business/economy/22view.html
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There is an entire population out there that believes everything that is written. So when they read in the New York Times that our expectation of repetition of a past event may cause a future event, they will take it seriously. That means they may begin to look at the words “law of attraction” and give the idea more credibility. After all, the NY Times wrote about it…
This is a glorious new year, we have a glorious new chance with a promising new president; these are not accidental coincidences. These are just the ever increasing evidence that we are indeed on an upswing. Evidence, that is, for those with eyes to see.
It is my vision that the NY Times and other mainstream media will take it as an ongoing theme: “can talking of something lead to causing it”? It is my vision that they will find writers that are able to be understood by the majority of their readers. My vision is that the readers, everyone’s collective thoughts of a hopeful future will drive us quickly back to economic balance, and THAT is what will be the new story of the day.
That is my vision. Will you join me in it? And I’m very hopeful about our President. It’s not a shame that he has to clean up a big mess before we get to see fully what kind of leader he can be. This is one way he is already showing us. He is taking on what has to be done and just doing it. That is symbolic on so many levels of the clearing away of the past, the releasing of past karma, the new beginning we are making with eyes wide open.
I couldn’t be happier or more hopeful. Will you join me in that also?