Lucy Kellaway is married to David Goodhart, editor of Prospect (leftist magazine)
Posted on 02/01/2009 7:12:37 PM PST by rabscuttle385
<excerpt>
In the middle of last week I tipped over from a state of mild fearfulness about the global economy to one of wild panic over what is to become of us.
On Wednesday, I became host to all sorts of crazy worries – big, unmanageable ones as well as little, stupid ones. I worried about there being anarchy on the streets of London – while at the same time fretting over whether I should have painted the boxroom cream rather than white.
This is the sort of mixed-up mental state I am familiar with from bouts of wakefulness at three in the morning. Never before have I known it at three in the afternoon.
The thing that tipped me over was tiny and distant and concerned a woman I have never met, who lives 3,000 miles away.
. . . . .
This is our first experience of recession in the internet age, and so far I don’t like it one little bit. You could say that the internet makes the recession more bearable as there are all those networks to help people get jobs and there is Ebay for buying things second-hand.
Yet such things are trivial compared to what the internet is doing to our confidence. The internet has created a global psyche. The web has mentally joined us at the hip, so we can no longer put our heads in the sand. If that sounds painfully contorted, it is because it is. Just as no country can decouple itself from the ailing global economy, none of us as individuals can decouple ourselves from the ailing global psyche.
Through blogs, websites and e-mails the world’s economic ills are fed to us on a drip all day long. It is not just that we hear about bad things faster, we hear about more of them and in a more immediate way. My worries become yours, and yours become mine. On the internet, a trouble shared online is not a trouble halved. It is a trouble needlessly multiplied all over the world. After reading this article, people in Australia will surely start worrying about my paint colours, too.
This would not matter so much if it were not for the fact that confidence is the medicine that cures a recession; and all this sharing of bad news leaves one with no confidence at all.
</excerpt>
If I had stuck to my writing, I might have been all right. But instead I started checking e-mails and wasting time on the internet and found myself reading a story from the Huffington Post about a nameless, well-dressed woman on Madison Avenue who had lost her job and was begging on the street to feed her four children.
Ms. Kellaway, that may have been your problem right there. Perhaps you should read something other than The Huffington Post.
Ping!
Well we are officially “victims” of the economy now. My wife has had her position eliminated along with 52% of our household income and our medical coverage. Things are about to get really ugly, really quick.
OMG!!!!! They didn’t really report that commie bile did they?
Don’t feel alone ... I have been out since Oct.... was heavily invested in the market and was pretty much wiped out in the crash. No job prospects on the horizon
“The internet has created a global psyche.”
No, Sweetheart. The MSM has done that. They’ve been PREACHING doom and gloom since 2000!
We are reaping what they have sewn. Surprisingly, many have benefited from this. Many stole from our pocketbooks while they thought we weren’t looking. (Bankers, Democrats, et al)
But, look! Even Congress is in on the game, now.
So all will be well. I’m CERTAIN 0bama will save us. *SPIT*
Sorry to hear. Prayers are with ya.
Another idiot who thinks that this is just another cyclical recession that can be fixed with a little ‘confidence’.
I worried about there being anarchy on the streets of London – while at the same time fretting over whether I should have painted the boxroom cream rather than white.
I’m sorry to learn that. Good luck, be strong and know you’re not alone.
Prayers up for you and yours.
I’m the Wife and I’m the 52% income in our house right now and I’m the insurance coverage.
Pray for me too, would ya?
Lucy is a woman, I would expect.
Lucy Kellaway is married to David Goodhart, editor of Prospect (leftist magazine)
So how you pay with no job? This house of cards is going down. Better make plans to team up for survival.
Yes, I realize this. Just amused at the difference in how men and women view the world.
A real man chooses Peach and cream.
Actually, heterosexual Brit men might. It’s nothing to do with effeminate culture or anything like that - it’s just how Brit men have been historically.
There are accounts of men in the front lines at Waterloo discussing how one’s library should be accoutered while they held off repeated charges from French cavalry, or even discussing interior decor with wounded French prisoners while still in square. It’s just how they are.
Black with white molding, actually. The black doesn’t show dirt. :D
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