But, although there doubtless have been profound changes in the way we organize our capital facilities, engage in just-in-time inventory regimes, and intertwine our newly sophisticated risk-sensitive financial system into this process, there is one important caveat to the notion that we live in a new economy, and that is human psychology.
BIS Review 69/1998  -2-  The same enthusiasms and fears that gripped our forebears, are, in every way, visible in the generations now actively participating in the American economy. Human actions are always rooted in a forecast of the consequences of those actions. When the future becomes sufficiently clouded, people eschew actions and disengage from previous commitments.