Personally, I'm working very hard. The productivity of the team I work on amazes me. My wife is also doing an incredible amount of work as she handles responsibilities that used to be distributed much more broadly, among more people. We and all our friends can report high levels of stress. The harder work and added stress is somewhat tolerable, because we are just happy to have stable jobs given the economic carnage in the country, and to have survived the debacle - so far.

I think its impossible to make long-term predictions about the new frugality while times are still so tough. Everybody feels poorer now, and they are very cautious about spending. But eventually salaries will begin to move up again, debt will be paid off and consumer spending will increase. I wouldn't expect the new equilibrium to look like the old, very relaxed one, but who knows?

I am struck recently by the manifold mysteries of the economic concepts of labor and employment. For example, we here at TPM Cafe often work very hard, and invest significant amounts of time, putting our thoughts into words. There is clearly a demand for the ideas that are posted, since many readers visit the site daily to consume them. And those visitors post their own words in turn for others to read. So what we have is a barter economy in ideas. There is production, value creation and exchange. It's clearly in that sense an economic enterprise. But as far as the metrics of our economy go, it is off the books.

On the one hand this is a testament to the industry and ceaseless creativity and ingenuity of human beings. Work is the most natural thing in the world. There is never any end to the work that needs to be, or could be done. And almost everyone can do something productive, something that provides something of value to meet the demands and desires of others. They often find ways to make something valuable and get something valuable in return.

But only some of this activity is measured, reported, assessed, taxed and regulated, and deemed part of the official or formal economy. And while the spontaneous industry and productivity are impressive, they might also represent a kind of economic primitivism: in an advanced economy, employment is ideally more regular, predictable and reliable. The goods that are produced are exchanged for more fungible forms of wealth mainly money - which gives its possessor the flexibility of either exchanging it for something else right away, or saving it for later. I wonder whether there is not some deep dysfunction in our economic system, where peoples' real values, desires and needs are not readily translatable into on the books economic activity, and where the productive energies and creativity of people are frozen and locked up in outmoded, institutionalized economies.

Ellen,

What's the difference between a secular credit contraction and a cyclical credit contraction? Asset deflation making lenders afraid to lend based on asset price instead of a contraction caused by the business cycle?

The term "secular" throws me.