Perhaps the rhythm of the school year, so ingrained in the American family’s calendar, means that problems that appear earlier in the year are allowed to fester during summer vacation and then finally explode right when workers return from the Poconos. Or perhaps the approaching Christmas-bonus season gets businesses and people looking more closely at their balance sheets.
Or perhaps it’s just randomness creating the illusion of a pattern. These are, after all, relatively few data points.
Are there alternative explanations?
— Catherine Rampell (via Tomorrow Museum)
…From the comments, suggestions include: (1) a lack of U.V. light, (2.) the zodiac…etc.
I’m willing to get behind the idea, proposed above, that it’s somehow tied to the concept of the summer vacation. For 22 years of my life, the time from approximately late May to early September held a sort of mystical feeling. I’ve always associated sumemr with a surreal feeling, with the idea of “not feeling like myself.” Perhaps I’ll escape this for a little while; but, should I ever have children, I’m sure to be plunged right back into (something like) that strange schedule from my own childhood. The patterns we lay down in out youth are powerful and influence our thinking about a variety of factors. Finance professionals are just as susceptible as the rest of us to falling back into old habits. It’s just…the consequences are just a bit different.
Source: The New York Times
