Americans and the economy: Angry feelings, fear exceeds terrorism risk
In the first three days of the country's economic meltdown that began Sept. 29, 81 percent of Americans surveyed in a national poll agreed or strongly agreed that the financial crisis "poses a greater threat to the quality of my life than does the threat of terrorism." And researchers found little trust in the government and even less in business leaders.
On a personal level, 41percent of the 802 respondents were very angry about the current financial challenges and 32 percent were moderately angry. Respondents were similarly fearful, worried, and sad. Only 19 percent felt they could adjust to what happens because of the financial crisis; 51 percent said they had no or only slight influence for controlling the impacts on their lives. Seventy-eight percent expect to postpone major purchases (large appliances or cars).
The survey was conducted by a five-member team, including three researchers with University of Oregon appointments, by Decision Research, a think tank for risk assessment based in Eugene. Additional surveys of the same participants will continue.
Asked a series of questions to gauge who participants trust to meet the economic challenge, respondents gave no one a firm endorsement. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama received the highest nod, but at only 23 percent. His Republican rival John McCain drew 16 percent of their trust. Support of President Bush, Congress and the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ranged from 5 percent to 7 percent. Business leaders drew only 2 percent.
The five researchers are William Burns, consultant to the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis for Terrorism Events and lecturer at California State University at San Marcos; Ellen Peters, senior scientist at Decision Research and courtesy psychology professor at the UO; Paul Slovic, president of Decision Research and UO psychology professor; Martin Tusler of Decision Research and the UO's department of planning, public policy and management; and C.K. Mertz of Decision Research.
"The current financial challenges in the United States represent a unique opportunity to study public risk perceptions and risk-related behaviors in the midst of an on-going economic crisis that threatens the quality of life of a wide spectrum of Americans," Burns said. "Few emergencies within the United States have affected so many people."
Researchers began their surveys at 1 p.m. (Eastern), Sept. 29, as the Dow Jones industrial average was in its biggest one-day decline in decades. Polling continued through 1 p.m., Oct. 1. Participants are on a 1,000-member national panel maintained by Decision Research; members participate in web-based surveys on a continuing basis. While not a random sample, the panel includes a broad cross-section of the people across the United States.
Eighty percent of the panel members, mean age of 39, participated; 71 percent were women and 79 percent were white/Caucasian; and 41 percent hold college degrees. The median annual income of responders was about $50,000. Thirty-nine percent listed their political party affiliation as Democrat, 21 percent as Republican, 20 percent as independent and 17 percent as undeclared. Respondents were 49 percent conservative and 50 percent liberal.
Almost half (48 percent) of respondents had investments in stocks or mutual funds; another 4 percent planned to invest in stocks and mutual funds in the next 12 months. Of these respondents, 31 percent said they were very likely or likely to change their investments during the next week to reduce their financial risk. When asked what they expected their average returns to be over the next year, 27 percent expected a negative rate 9 percent expected zero or no return, and 67 percent expected no more than 5 percent.
When the same questions were asked by Decision Research during the bear market of March 2001, expectations were far more optimistic even though the market declined 69 percent during the year.
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Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
Speaking of terrorism:
George W. Bush committed hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism (indicated in my blog).
George W. Bush did in fact commit innumerable hate crimes.
And I do solemnly swear by Almighty God that George W. Bush committed other hate crimes of epic proportions and with the stench of terrorism which I am not at liberty to mention.
Many people know what Bush did.
And many people will know what Bush did—even to the end of the world.
Bush was absolute evil.
Bush is now like a fugitive from justice.
Bush is a psychological prisoner.
Bush has a lot to worry about.
Bush can technically be prosecuted for hate crimes at any time.
In any case, Bush will go down in history in infamy.
Submitted by Andrew Yu-Jen Wang
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
“GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY†BLOG OF ANDREW YU-JEN WANG
______________________
I am not sure where I had read it before, but anyway, it is a linguistically excellent statement, and it goes kind of like this: “If only it were possible to ban invention that bottled up memory so it never got stale and faded.†Oh wait—off of the top of my head—I think the quotation came from my Lower Merion High School yearbook.
Economy
So much fear.
Hopefully the new administration will apply some common sense and real solutions to the problems we are facing today.
Our family is not waiting on the government. We have started to help ourselves. We found sites like www.STICKYASSET.com and are using that information to help us get ahead - even in a bad economy.
You should, too.
Bob
Choosing not to speak with a forked tongue...........
The global economy is saved, now how about turning attention and financial resources to saving the Earth from a meltdown?
It looks as if the Wonder Boys on Wall Street, who caused the current disaster in the world's financial system, are going to rescue the family of humanity from a meltdown of the global economy.
Is it too much to ask some of these multi-billionaires to provide wealth to save the world from the global "meltdown" of Earth's ice pack that is occurring in Greenland, Antarctica, the high mountain ranges from the Arctic Cordillera, to the Andes to the Himalayas?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
Primrose Path
And who do you suggest we kill to limit population?
Why don't you get rid of the no follow tag?
Why should I contribute to your blog if you won't even let me get a link back?
Leading our children down a "primrose path"
How could one generation go so wrong? Evidently, the leaders in my generation of elders wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, increasing per capita consumption, and skyrocketing human population numbers; our desires are insatiable. We choose to believe anything that is politically convenient, economically expedient and socially agreeable; our way of life is not negotiable. We dare anyone to question our values or behaviors. We religiously promote our widely shared and consensually-validated fantasies of 'real' endless economic growth and soon to become unsustainable overconsumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, and in so doing deny that Earth has limited resources and frangible ecosystems upon which the survival of life as we know it and the success of any manmade economy depend. My not-so-great generation appears to be doing a disservice to everything and everyone but ourselves.
Never in the course of human events have so few members of a single generation stolen, consumed and hoarded so much wealth at the expense of so many other people. We have mortgaged the future of our own children. We are the "what's in it for me generation". We demonstrate precious little regard for the maintenance of the integrity of Earth; shallow willingness to actually protect the environment from crippling degradation; lack of serious consideration for the preservation of biodiversity, wilderness, and a good enough future for our children and coming generations; and no appreciation of the vital understanding that humans are no more or less than magnificent living beings with "feet of clay".
Perhaps my not-so-great does live in unsustainable ways in our planetary home; but we are proud of it nonetheless. Certainly, we will "have our cake and eat it, too." We own fleets of cars, fly around in thousands of private jets, live in McMansions, exchange secret handshakes, frequent exclusive clubs and distant hideouts, and risk nothing of value to us. We will live long, large and free. Please do not bother us with the problems of the world. We choose not to hear, see or speak of them. Remember, silence is golden. We are the economic powerbrokers, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and the many minions in the mass media. We hold the much of the world's wealth and the extraordinary power great wealth purchases. If left to our own devices, we will continue in the exercise of our 'inalienable rights' to outrageously consume Earth's limited resources; to recklessly expand economic globalization unto every corner of our natural world and, guess what, beyond; and to carelessly consent to the unbridled global growth of human numbers so that where there are now 6+ billion people, by 2050 we will have 9+ billion members of the human community and, guess what, even more people, perhaps billions more in the distant future, if that is what we desire. We never lie but also never tell the truth as we see it. The "thing" that matters most of all to us is "the only game in town". We are the reigning, self-proclaimed masters of the universe. We enjoy freedom and living without limits; of course, we adamantly eschew any talk of the personal responsibilities that come with the exercise of personal freedoms and any discussion of the existence of biophysical limitations a finite planet naturally imposes.
We deny the existence of human limits and Earth's limitations. Please understand that we do not want anyone presenting us with scientific evidence that we could be living unsustainably in an artificially designed, temporary world of our own making....a manmade world filling up with gigantic enterprises, virtual mountains of material possessions, and boundless amounts of filthy lucre. Most of our top rank experts appear not to have found adequate ways of communicating to the family of humanity what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the rapacious dissipation of Earth's limited resources, the relentless degradation of the planet's environment, and the approaching destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, when taken together, appear to be proceeding at breakneck speed toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world's colossal, ever expanding, artificially designed, manmade global political economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic 'wall' called "unsustainability" at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth's ecology is collapsed. Who knows, perhaps we can realistically and hopefully hold onto the expectation that behavioral changes in the direction of sustainable production, per human consumption, and propagation are in the offing.....changes that save the global economy, life as we know it and Earth's body.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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