Gloomy forecasts of Sunset Park at Brooklyn Ink, Hotels and Restaurants

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Over at Brooklynink.com there are two stories concerning Sunset Park with a rather negative spin on the local economy. One is a post regarding restaurants and focused largely on the eateries of our borough. The other one regards Hotels, which as some of you may know have recently made a splash in our nabe.

I generally don't share in the doom and gloom. We are nowhere near a depression nor are we anywhere near the steep economic straights that we were during the Carter era. All the statistics and data bear that out. Even during the depths of the depression unemployment never got above 25% and we haven't even hit 8% yet. Our GDP has shrunk by a mere 1% and people are still going about their business of making a living. The problem however, has to do with perception. In economics as in politics perception is reality. When enough people do nothing else bu spread doom and gloom as a result of their own agendas it becomes catchy and can create panic. It becomes what economist Alfred Khan used to call "the tyranny of small decisions". When you have the president of this country talking down the economy and everyone in the mainstream press parroting the same line it can create a self fulfilling prophecy. If only people would just ignore the bad news and go about our business as usual, we would in effect create our own good news, regardless what the idiots in Washington think. Unfortunately, life is not so simple and we become the unwitting victims of the morons that rule us because chaos and instability is to their advantage so they can fleece us.