(see also constellations of narratives)
Coinage Act of 1834, 157
Coinage Act of 1873, 157, 165
Coin’s Financial School (Harvey), 161, 162
Cole, Harold L., 132
collective consciousness, 60
collective memory, 60
communications technology. See information technology
compartmental models of epidemics, 23, 289–93, 291f; applications that don’t fit such models well
by, 295–96; ARIMA models and, 295; changed for social epidemics and epidemics of ideas, 296,
297; geographic, 296, 299; network models, 296. See also Kermack-McKendrick SIR model
compassion narrative, 137, 140, 141–42; decline in, 150, 272; in Japanese “lost decades,” 150
complacency, before financial crisis, 55–56
computer networks, singularity associated with, 204–5
computers: automation narrative mutated by, 204–5; “electronic brain” narrative and, 195; fear that
jobs will be replaced by, 9, 10, 201; inequality in access to, 211; replacing human thinking, 199;
successful in the home beginning in 1980s, 203; taking control of people’s lives, 8–9, 87
condominium conversion boom, 223–24
confabulation, 32, 66, 96
confidence indexes, 79, 119, 129, 266–67
confidence narratives: of 1930s still affecting public confidence, 129, 252; business cycle and, 124–
25; causes of Great Depression and, 130, 132; classes of, 114–15, 116f; Hitler’s appeal and, 122;
labor-saving machinery narrative and, 174; opinion leaders’ optimistic assurances and, 125–26,
127–28; other people’s confidence and, 114, 272; rapid changes in, 272; real estate and, 212;
seemingly irrelevant events affecting, 67; stock market crash narrative and, 238; stock prices and,
228; weather forecasting and, 123. See also business confidence narrative; consumer confidence
narrative; financial panic narrative
confluence of narratives, 29–30
Conley, John M., 15
consilience, 12–17
conspicuous consumption narratives, 136; American Dream narrative and, 154, 155; delaying car
purchase during Depression and, 144; depression prolonged by avoidance of, 139, 142, 144–46;
housing boom narrative and, 225; Veblen and, 154, 310n1
conspiracy theories in narrative, 35–36
constellations of narratives, 28–30; built around celebrities, 101–2; class struggle over gold standard
and, 166–67; co-epidemic models applied to, 295; economic decision-making and, 91; of financial
panic narratives, 115, 118f; Great Depression and, 129, 131, 135, 144; about Halley’s comet, 124;
“Happy Birthday to You” and, 100; about housing market, 227; impact of, 29, 92–93; Laffer curve
in, 47–48; names attached to, 94–95; as new context for old narratives, 271; not obvious from
archival data, 86; opposing pairs of, 113; overview of, 28–30; on people paying more than 100% in
taxes, 49; random events feeding into, 40, 99–100; recovery rates and, 89; after September 2001
terrorist attacks, 83, 307n20; about stock market bubbles, 228; suggestibility and, 119; supply-side
economics as, 47–48; on tax cutting and smaller government, 52; on Wizard of Oz, 172
Consumer Confidence Index, 119, 266–67
consumer confidence narrative, 115, 116f, 118–19; nineteenth-century worldviews and, 116–17
Consumer Expenditure Survey of Federal Reserve, 282
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and interstate land sales, 317n15
consumerism, Albee’s criticism of, 153
Consumer Price Index (CPI), 245
consumers, theories based on motives and habits of, xv