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Dose of Meditation
October 29, 2008
Yesterday afternoon, the silent financial news feed creepily transmitted from the monitor in my office building elevator ran a crawl beneath the stock pricing graphics that said: Consumer Confidence at an all time low.
A captive audience to this bad news, everyone in the crowded elevator stared dumbly at the monitor, then kind of embraced a fate-driven group dread that was palpable. A tall guy next to me sighed and dropped his head. We all avoided that ever-so-awkward human eye contact and slumped out of the elevator out onto the sidewalk into some of the coldest, rainiest, gloomiest, Fall weather to date. The scene was a downer, to say the least.
Do you believe in the CCI -- The Consumer Confidence Index? What does it really mean? Is "consumer confidence" a reality or just a vaguely construed joint sentiment? a form of group think becoming reality? Obviously, when these overall feelings of confidence decline, it affects our economy in a real way, and at some point, things can spiral out of control. I believe that can happen. Group think is as powerfully positive as it is negative.
A little off the subject ...
I can't lie that I feel trapped in the elevator with this new monitor
thing-y
that has been rigged up in my elevator, this evil, glowing harbinger of
financial doom. And lately, it has been incredibly difficult to look
over at it, knowing that it patiently awaits your gaze so it can
communicate to you just how badly things are going these days.
And of course it doesn't help that I work on the 17th floor and that the
people on the 12th floor hold the elevator for each other in a
disorganized, self-serving manner on the way up and down. It never
fails. So, instead of staring into another passenger's ear or
looking down or up at the tiles overhead or pretending to text and check
messages, I gaze over at the dreaded elevator monitor. dun dun dun....
Evidently, the Consumer Confidence Index is a kind of esoteric, interconnected and often highly volatile measure of consumer consumption. Specifically, it is an indicator of whether or not people are spending money or holding it back. But, the sampling used is notoriously small and it is not an exact science.
It seems that when people feel good and prosperous about the future, about the economy, they run around charging stuff. And, when they feel badly, they shove their money into their mattresses and pull the bed covers over their heads.
So how do we raise consumer confidence without simultaneously encouraging people to over extend themselves? Of course the economy needs people to spend money, so that businesses can flourish. But, it is the very belief that the good times will keep on rolling, or the complete inattention to the fragility of the economy in the first place that causes debt, both corporate and personal.
The economic messaging conveyed by the media need not self-censor. But the media does need to be more delicate and responsible in how it covers the current economic downturn. If not, the constant repetition of images, such as the elevator monitor that conveys financial doom to a captive audience each and every time they step onto their elevator at work combined with our current era of media over saturation, could have a very harmful impact on the CCI. Ease up...
