Happy days, here again. But whether or not the market has hit its fabled bottom, there's no question the zeitgeist has taken a sharp turn unlikely to be reversed. E.g., this item in today's Wall Street Journal about "The New Buzz Heard Around Water Coolers Nationwide":
"Remember the end of irony? Those dark weeks after Sept. 11 when we bonded together as a nation, vowed to be kinder, work less, savor life and drive more considerately?
"That was a long ten months ago. Many of those good intentions have been plowed under by the implosion of Enron and WorldCom, and the vanishing stock-market wealth. Vague anxieties about foreign threats and terrorist attacks have become concrete fears about jobs, families and retirement. Evil lurks within, we have learned. Many in top management have been discovered to be liars, or worse, crooks.
"Little wonder a dark pall has descended on many offices. Griping has returned in full force. ...
"Pessimism has permeated almost every part of the economy. After thousands of layoffs and billions of dollars in evaporated stock options, everyone is seen as expendable -- or feels they're seen as expendable by their bosses, particularly in the nonunion industries.
"The petty jealousies among co-workers during the boom, born of car and stock-option envy, have given way to outright hostility toward top managers, mostly those who cashed out their options when still in the money. The utopian, New Economy-speak of lifting humanity by lifting shareholder value is gone, replaced with crude political infighting and a death watch for more victims of big layoffs.
"'There's a terrible disenchantment going on now,' says Randall Weingarten, psychiatrist and clinical professor at Stanford University. 'There really is a kind of crashing of optimism out there.'"...
Carl
_________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx