"Beliefs and stories passed on by thousands of individuals are important factors, maybe even the main ones, in determining big shifts in the economy." We've kn

"Beliefs and stories passed on by thousands of individuals are important factors, maybe even the main ones, in determining big shifts in the economy." We've known this all the way back to Keynes. That's why he wanted the government to step in and pick up the slack created by individual consumers creating a self fulfilling prophecy of cutting back their own spending by 10% in preparation for a possible bad economy. Not only would the government spending help offset reduced consumer spending but the knowledge, within the broad population, that the government would do this would reduce fear of a recession and thus reduce the recession inducing behavior.