Likewise, ProQuest News & Newspapers counts of the frequency of the phrase “Great Depression” soared to unprecedented heights. There were more mentions of “Great Depression” in 2009 than there were during the Great Depression.
But then, with no stock-market crash and no extreme depression in sight, these fears were replaced by their opposite: deeper admiration of business success. A new narrative emerged, featuring a new wave of billionaire geniuses whose appearance in the 1990s was interrupted only briefly by the financial crisis. The publication in 2011 of the number-one best seller Steve Jobs,Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple founder, is one example. Elon Musk has stirred excitement with futuristic companies such as aerospace manufacturer SpaceX and Neuralink, which is developing implantable brain-computer interfaces.
The accession of a flamboyant businessman, Donald Trump, to the US presidency is evidence of the strength of many Americans’ identification with business heroes. Starting in 2004, Trump spent much of his time developing his business persona as the star of the reality TV show The Apprentice, and then, from 2008, The Celebrity Apprentice. His campaign marshaled this enthusiasm, and his claim that he would “Make America Great Again” appealed to the optimism of US investors.
The quadrupling of US stock prices since 2009, as well as Trump’s election, thus appears to reflect, at least in part, a process of fear abatement and re-enchantment with American business culture. But it is hard to forecast such trends – even the biggest – in the stock market, not only because forecasting is a highly competitive business, but also because spontaneity plays such an important role in human behavior.
Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, is professor of economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index of US house prices. He is the author of Irrational Exuberance, the third edition of which was published in January 2015, and, most recently, Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, co-authored with George Akerlof.