Firms were able to sustain production, and business and consumer confidence was not threatened. A vicious circle of the initial disruption leading to losses and then further erosion in the financial sector never got established.
The careful investigator, however, is constantly aware of the fact that the preciseness of his numerical result varies directly with the degree of care used in selecting, from the larger universe, the sample upon which his study is based. The numerical conclusions derived from a study of the sample are held to be characteristic and representative of the universe.