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they just require a basic physiology that provides an ability to learn. Learned solutions don't need rediscovery every generation, because we have communication and transgenerational sharing of knowledge the memes can then be passed along in societal memes as "culture." So a cultural attitude could "evolve" very very quickly.
I'm not any sort of expert on evolutionary pyschology, or psychology in general, but a cultural awareness of annual cycles and some notion of how to deal with annual shortages seems to be fundamentally what is needed. When the nation experienced $4 gasoline and 20-30% hikes in food during the summer and some pundit tells us that winter heating fuel costs are going to be double or triple of what we were planning, it only makes sense that consumers went into a rationing mode with their money. Money is what most people need to survive winter.
It seems to me that the money rationing that began in late summer and has continued through Sept. Oct. and Nov is what crippled retail sales and shrunk global demand. Why do I think that? Because the collapse of inter-bank lending didn't really end production. If demand was good and production was halted we would be looking at price inflation in consumer goods. Instead we are seeing price lowering in major areas of consumer spending including---housing, automobiles, fuel, and clothing.
The widening gyre of job-loss, falling consumer confidence and linked decline in descretionary consumer spending causing falling demand leading to job-loss is the cycle that must be ended so that better times are percieved and the need to ration money can be eased and economic recovery/expansion can resume. I'm hopeful that as the summer arrives heating bills ease, and deflation makes purchasing attractive that consumer spending will increase and we will see the glimmer of hope for a recovery. Though, a recvery won't happen if job loss keeps increasing.
I think your general notion that spending is important to getting past this recession is correct, and to some extent it is a problem based on consumer psychology, though I wouldn't go to where Phil Gramm is and say this recession is simply in people's heads.
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