A Brief History of Why The U.S. Consumer Thinks The Way They Do
To understand the psychology of the modern consumer and to grasp where
they might be heading next, you have to know how they got here.
How we all got here.
If you fell asleep in 1945 and woke up in 2020 you would not recognize the
world around you.
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When you'll Believe Anything
When you'll Believe Anything
Imagine an alien dispatched to Earth. His job is to keep tabs on our
economy.
He circles above New York City, trying to size up the economy and how it
changed between 2007 and 2009.
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Room for Error
Room for Error
Some of the best examples of smart financial behavior can be found in an
unlikely place: Las Vegas casinos.
Not among all players, of course. But a tiny group of blackjack players who
practice card counting can teach ordinary people something
extraordinarily
important about managing money: the importance of room for error.
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The Seduction of Pessimism
The Seduction of Pessimism
“For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is
going to hell.”
—Historian Deirdre McCloskey
Optimism is the best bet for most people because the world tends to get
better for most people most of the time.
But pessimism holds a special place in our hearts. Pessimism isn’t just
more
common than optimism. It also sounds smarter. It’s intellectually
captivating, and it’s paid more attention than optimism, which is often
viewed as being oblivious to risk.
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You & Me
You & Me
The implosion of the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s reduced household
wealth by $6.2 trillion.
The end of the housing bubble cut away more than $8 trillion.
It’s hard to overstate how socially devastating financial bubbles can be.
They ruin lives.
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