I’ve been wondering… If politicians and the media stopped telling us that the economy is bad, how many people would know? If you have investments and you’re losing money on them you probably pay attention to such things so you would know. If you own a business and your profits are down you might suspect that the economy is not doing so well. If you are unemployed you might blame the economy if you even think in those terms.
But if you are an ordinary employed person, would you think anything is seriously wrong with the economy if you weren’t being reminded of it every day? I’m quite certain all those people waiting in line for the latest iPhone wouldn’t notice.
Now I’m not saying that the economy is A-OK and that we should just ignore it. And I’m certainly not saying that we should ignore all those unemployed people. All I’m saying is, is it bad enough that most people would notice even if nobody told them?
Of course, I live in a state where unemployment is just over 5% so what would I know?
October 3rd, 2012 - 8:14 am
I think you’d notice things like “Wow, filling up the vehicle is quite the expense”, and “Wow, these same groceries that cost $150 this week cost $110 a year ago”. I’m not sure how much ‘macro’ sense we’d have. There seems to me a fine line between getting a sense of the ‘macro’ world, and getting all panicky about it.
October 3rd, 2012 - 11:35 am
I know because it cost nearly $20 to fill up a doggone *motorcycle*.
October 3rd, 2012 - 11:59 am
Inflation. They tell us there’s no inflation but my grocery bill keeps going up even though I am not eating any more than I did before.
Also, where my parents live at least? There are still MANY boarded up houses with “No Trespassing, property of such-and-such bank” on them – foreclosures.