 Killing the Fear Factor
Managing Editor: Allie Bell
"The nation’s economic crisis has led to an ‘excess of fear’ among Americans that must be broken to reverse the downturn,” stated the Associated Press back in March. The “excess of fear” phrase was coined by Lawrence Summers, the president’s director of the National Economic Council.
A fellow industry leader mentioned to me that if we could just get the general public to turn off their T.V.s, close their newspapers and stop up their ears for just one month — things would start to turn around. While I’m not entirely sure this scenario would work, I do agree that what we need today is more optimism in the media and more confidence in the world.
As CoStar stated in one of its CRE investor reports back in February, “Call it optimistically hopeful, but federal policy makers said the national recession could end this year, with the beginnings of recovery possibly taking hold in 2010.” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke echoed this statement when he said the recession could end this year if the various government and market interventions are successful.
AZRE has also reported within its various articles that there are multiple silver linings to the economic cloud looming over Arizona.  Those companies with long-term strategies, who see productive opportunities and take advantage of the lower costs in doing construction today — those will be the ones who will do the best in the next cycle. Additionally, national CRE industry experts state that the best advice for business leaders today is to not foreshorten the horizon at a moment like this.
But for the general public, the best words of advice come from the past. As President Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Allie Bell
Managing Editor
allie.bell@azbigmedia.com
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