The time when corporate managers get to blame the economy for their own mistakes and poor management. Investors, business partners, and employees all know that the weak economy is not the company's fault. So they can blame everything on Alan Greenspan. Let him take the heat. This way, corporate managers look like heroes at the end of the next quarter when profits rebound.
Cautious consumers tend to aggravate already weakening demand.
Take, for example, announcements about layoffs. Companies want to assure Wall Street that they are taking action to cut costs and restore profits, so they announce job cuts, often without actually laying anyone off. Layoff totals sometimes include normal attrition, sales of operations to other companies, and vague plans that will be ignored when sales improve. Take a close look at the labor market data reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dot-com layoffs have received a lot of attention, but these people appear to be back to work already.