>IMHO, what is hurting the economy most is the talking down of it. Obama talked the economy into the trashcan in order to get support for his stimulus bill. He was supposed to be our great motivator and he is motivating everyone to stop spending and worry worry worry. That has an extreme trickle down effect. The media perpetuates and exacerbates the problem. If some very respected economists and Obama would publicly declare the economy will turnaround withing so many months, it would. The public media follows the news and reports on it ad nauseam and then the public follows the media.

Sit firm. I am going to do something shocking: agree.

In an economy where there so much depends on the whims of the Walmart street, where psychology is so crucial (and that's because everyone has the right to try to scam everybody else, so reliable information is scarce), many prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling when uttered from high rungs of the ladders.

Just like GW2B said, within 24 hours of 9/11, "spend, spend, spend", well, this "worry, worry, worry" comes a bit late, and maybe a couple of months of downturn may have the effect of sobering up, and turning to value instead of third order derivatives. Then, a "OK, we've reached the depth and bounced off the bottom" would sound more plausible.

At least I hope that's what he's doing. I've heard other scenarios, but I generally don't want to join the doomsayers on such a nice weekend.