The Easiest Stories to Write

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"The economic downturn is forcing a return to a culture of thrift that many economists say could last well beyond the inevitable recovery."

From this morning's NY Times. Jeez. I'll take the other side of that. I'm beginning to think that recency effect is a cognitive bias only really practiced by the media. Things have been bad so they're going to stay bad for a while. Get it? See what I did there? The more difficult story to write, but one that is much more likely to happen, is as follows:

• U.S. banks and consumers took on too much leverage over the 15 years leading up to 2006
• Just as the banks need to get their balance sheets into shape, U.S. consumers need to do the same. They are doing it
• I guarantee you that there are consumers everywhere that feel punished that they have been foregoing Starbucks, or aren't putting in a pool this year, or are only going to Europe for one week this summer
• It will vary consumer-to-consumer, but once debt levels are reduced and the economy is better, big spending levels and low savings rates will come back with a vengeance

Americans suck at saving.

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CNN is now reading viewer Tweets on the air. The democratization of media continues and I am not a fan. Reading viewer email is one thing, but still something in which I have no interest. Some emails though are thoughtful and provocative. Tweets are generally 140 character-max smartass comments. If I want those, I can go out drinking with my friends. Silly me but I'm kind of looking for the opposite from CNN.

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Happy Mothers' day. I'm going to play golf.