the broad dispute this conversation is a part of is about what the whole constellation of data is telling us though. we disagree about that, so we’re likely to disagree about how and to what degree the picture painted by this Fed survey meshes or fails to mesh with other sources of information.

note that during broadly acknowledged cycles, the psychological case for an optimism bias diminishes: it’s okay to fail when everyone is failing, that doesn’t mean make one a loser. 1/

it’s when there’s not a crisis on which one can blame one’s struggles, when plausibly other people are doing fine, even better than fine, that (perhaps ironically) it makes psychological sense to claim others are struggling rather than oneself. /fin