I always found the appeal to the market gods a bit odd. Why would the market fix mistakes instead of aggravating them?
Dan ArielyImagine you owe on five credit cards, you owe five debts. So which debt should you pay first? And the answer is very simple: You should pay the one with the highest interest rate first. But that's not what people do.
Dan ArielyWho would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more.
Dan ArielyIf you have loans, the first thing you want to do is say, "Okay, look I have a credit card, if I really need to borrow, I have this emergency money that I can get, but for now there is no reason for me to keep cash at zero percent interest rate and at the same time, pay all of this money out. So, I think people need to figure out quickly how to pay loans and how much cash they should really keep.
Dan Ariely