State of Fear

Michael Crichton wrote a book with that title, describing the use of scare tactics to make people more amenable to the view that global warming and other environmental concerns are a major problem.

We may very well have experienced something similar with the economy over the past few months, with winning the presidential election being the initial incentive to spur fear-mongering and now a "stimulus" bill, that is long on Democratic priorities being funded and adding to the baseline budget, being the current incentive.

Tragically, inciting that fear adds to our economic woes, since a significant amount of economic activity is predicated on confidence in the future. In response to these fears, businesses have cut employment and reduced new investment, and consumers have reduced spending. This is why FDR said, in the Great Depression, that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself."

The "nothing" part was an exaggeration then and today, since there are genuine economic problems today as there were in the 1930's. But fear mongering can deepen the recession and delay recovery.