The Role of Fear in This Faltering Economy
Our economy is definitely going through some “tough times”, as our President George Bush recently confirmed in a speech regarding the floundering economy of today.
A combination of factors have created a very volatile stock market, housing market, increasing inflation and cost of living, and a faltering job market, t https://npfinancials.com.au/but one key component of a failing economy plays an intangible role in facilitating and perpetuating economic instability.
That component is human fear. We can’t help it, we’ve evolved with fear as one of our main emotions, and the media and our surroundings have only helped it along by declaring “the sky if falling” with it’s seemingly nonstop doomsday headlines.
Heck, you can’t read your email without seeing the headlines on the side declaring that we are headed for worse times before they get better, costs are skyrocketing, foreclosures are at an all time high, gas prices are astronomical, and basically that everything is working against us right now.
The sky looks very dim indeed if you tune in to the nightly news or happen to be bombarded with all this fearful journalism every day on the internet, which is an increasingly popular portal for getting the news. So, has the media played a part in our faltering economy, or is it really a combination of unfortunate factors, seemingly brought on by events beyond our control?
Well, most people feel the media is partly responsible for making things worse. Take the stock market for example. Fear is the stock market’s worst enemy. When consumer confidence in the economy is low and there are other headlines that are less than favorable in the financial, retail, and last but not least, housing sectors, the stock market suffers dramatic volatility.
In fact, one of the hardest hit in the subprime and credit fiasco, whom also was recently bailed out by the federal government and JP Morgan, another financial heavy, Bear Stearns, acknowledges that fear is it’s worst enemy. They insist that their financials are still intact, but rumors that were rampant about the company’s imminent collapse forced shares down to their lo
