The Economic Perception Model

no it's not a recession

“If you have to call it different names, it’s not a recession.” - Neil Dutta

“Are we in a Recession?” is probably one of the most asked questions of the past few years. Some people will respond with a full-throated “Yes, Absolutely”, others will point to the economic data that clearly outlines that we aren’t, and others will shrug their shoulders and turn back to focusing on what they need to get done.

The psychology of a person is a fickle beast.

I started a series last week exploring the idea of nostalgia as a forcing function for why-people-do-things-the-way-they-do with the general idea that “good ol times”¹ drive a lot our perception of current times. Nostalgia is how we look upon the past and unfortunately, threats are how we see the present.

And today I want to walk through the whole “we are in a recession” ideology, contrasted against the nostalgia cycle loop, through economic perception, bifurcation, and cynicism.

Economic Perception

So the figure below shows a pretty rough model…