i love just watching the economic world currently. Everything has flipped upside down, but we have a great chance to see different theories reflect their true worth. One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is the whole concept of perception of security. Right now everyone is afraid. People have finally began to see the daily life impact of the financial world collapsing and billions of dollars basically evaporating out of the economy.

So now people see the possible bad times ahead, and they have stopped spending. The average American has began to increase their saving to hedge their own lives against a long downturn. The irony of this is that it is the worst thing to happen right now. Spending is the blood of the economy and when it’s not flowing, everything dies.

So while people have been losing their jobs, a greater impact to the economy has been millions of people NOT spending as they normally would. I keep thinking about back to after 9-11 and when bush’s main input was to ‘keep spending’. While a pathetic response to the world at that time, it’s kinda the response that we need right now. If consumption continued as before, we could actually come out of this crisis quite quickly. Instead there is fear and saving which is killing our economy.

I haven’t lived in NYC for long, but i can just tell by the empty restaurants and quiet bars, that this city will not be the same for a while.