Remember when the weather was the preferred topic of smalltalk? I used to get tired of chatting about whether a cold spell was going to break or the old “heat vs. humidity” conversation.

Now, I long for them.

That’s because the chat choice d’jour is now the economy. You can’t stand in line at the supermarket or the DMV for more than a few minutes before someone will start talking about just how lousy things are right now. A few short years ago, people seemed to take some kind of perverse satisfaction in predicting blizzards, hurricanes and droughts based on a week’s worth of weather. Today, they get that same look in their eye when confronting strangers with tales of escalating unemployment and a looming Depression.

We can play chicken and egg with this. Is the constant chit-chat about the falling economic sky persuading media outlets to focus more and more on grim economic news, or is the media’s obsession with any negative economic indicator and its horrific potential consequences feeding the conversation?

It really doesn’t matter. The result is the same. Everyone seems convinced that our economy is on death’s door and that soup lines will soon be forming in front of abandoned auto dealerships. The swollen ranks of the homeless will be stacked like cordwood in the shells of emptied shopping malls. Economic Armegeddon is upon us.

The disproportionate negativity is annoying. It might also be dangerous because it influences the way we assess real risks in our every day life.

I recently came across an interesting article about risk analysis in the IT field. It mentioned that people are prone to overestimating a risk when they’re too close to an issue. They lose the necessary objectivity to reasonably assess the likelihood of events because they’re so wrapped up in the analysis of every shred of risk-related information about a topic. When you get too close, you make poor decisions.

It’s very likely that many people are getting a little too close to the doom and gloom reports about our economy and it really makes one wonder if that’s not leading to some very poor decisionmaking. All of this chit-chat from our neighbors, co-workers and evening news anchors may be negatively influencing our personal ability to conduct reasonable risk analysis.

Before the faltering economy became a focus of attention, expert recommended that one should save about six months worth of salary as a cushion before quitting a job to start something new. That seemed like a reasonable buffer for those who wanted to flex a litte entrepreneurial muscle.

Today, if you talk about intentionally quitting your job to do create a new business, people look at you as if you’re insane. They can’t believe that anyone would give up steady work “at a time like this”. Experts recommend holding onto unrewarding jobs if they’re bearable until things get better.

How many entrepreneurs with great ideas and the potential to help energize the economy have we lost due to the fear of a cruel economic fate reserved for those willing to walk away from employment?

When the markets began to fall, people began cutting back on 401k contributions. Some even pulled their money out completely, regardless of the tax implications.

How much did they lose in the process relative to where they might be five years from now had they held things together? How much did those panic withdrawals encourage a further drop in the markets?

I won’t argue that everything is right in the world. Nor will I maintain that recent legislative actions have a strong likelihood of rejuvenating an economy in recession. However, I also won’t join in announcing the death of the U.S. economy and I certainly don’t plan to start hoarding canned goods and ammunition any time soon.

I’m just trying to dodge a constant stream of negative information and I’m working a little harder to get to the truth about our economic future. It doesn’t necessarily look rosy, but I don’t think we’ll be wearing barrels and eating dirt by July, either.

I guess you could say I’m trying to stay just far enough away from the details of your sister’s friend’s layoff and the news about how they’re cutting part-time hours at the big box store that it all doesn’t overwhelm me or my ability to assess real risks and probabilities. I don’t want to get too close because I don’t want to overreact, even though overreaciton seems to be replacing baseball as our national pastime.

That’s what I’m doing.  Oh, I’m also talking about the weather.