When people talk of the economy being strong, they don't seem to feel that they, too, are better off.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the disconnect between national economic indicators and individual economic well-being.
Daniel Kahneman points out that while discussions about a strong economy may be prevalent, many individuals do not perceive an improvement in their own financial situation. This suggests that economic strength as measured by statistics does not necessarily align with the personal economic experiences of the average person, highlighting a disparity in perception and reality.
In practice
During a lecture on economic indicators, one might quote Kahneman to illustrate the gap between statistics and personal experience.
We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion.
You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.
China's government has far more control over the country's economy than our government has over ours, and it is moving from export dependence to a model of growth driven by domestic demand. Any restriction on exports to the U.S. would simply accelerate a process already underway.
The Federal Budget can and should be made an instrument of prosperity and stability, not a deterrent to recovery.
Economies are supposed to serve human ends.. not the other way round. We forget at our peril that markets make a good servant, a bad master and a worse religion.
The market economy-capitalism-is a social system of consumers' supremacy.
If low taxes were the way that people like me created wealth, then we'd be starting our companies in the Congo or Somalia or Afghanistan, but we're not. We come to places where there are lots and lots of customers.
Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn't have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top - as we always do.
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