"It's a tsunami washing over me". "You can't stop it". "All of a sudden the plane just crashes; everything is turned upside down". "The economy is a clumsy oaf...a clueless, staggering giant." "It takes the life out of me." "The United States is coming unglued." Dramatic metaphors like these provide a window into Americans' unconscious thoughts and feelings about the current state of the U.S. economy.

A study by Dr. Gerald Zaltman, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, author of How Customers Think and co-author of Marketing Metaphoria, and Dr. Jerry Olson, Professor Emeritus at Penn State University, and their firm, Olson Zaltman Associates (OZA), suggest an unconscious fear of death lies beneath various surveys describing Americans' widespread worry, anger and pessimism about the economy.

In October, OZA conducted in-depth, two hour, one-on-one ZMET interviews with 30 diverse Americans. Despite their diversity, all share the same fundamental views about the impact of the economy on their lives as revealed by an analysis of their metaphors.

Americans worry that the crashing economy will crush their personal freedom, erode their standard of living, and sidetrack their journey toward realizing the American Dream.

- "The markets are like a Tasmanian devil...wiping everything out." - "I work hard all my life and instead of being more free, it's going the other way." - "It has collapsed;" it is "broken;" all is "in chaos" - The American Dream of continual progress, doing better than your parents, is increasingly "out of reach" and may be "dying" - The growing economic catastrophe is diminishing America's standing in the world. The transformations may be permanent.

- "America is falling from its pinnacle. We may be sitting dead in the water." - Normally, the economy is seen as a natural and balanced system, but the current economy has gone out of control.

- "The economy reminds me of the sound of the winds from a tornado...the rattling of cars getting thrown around and things crashing. It's uncontrollable, it's wiping everything out." - Some see the economy as a dangerous, unpredictable monster threatening destruction.

- "It has taken on a life of its own, like Frankenstein." - The complexity of the system is confusing and scary.

- "I know that something dangerous lurks around the corner, but I don't know when it will strike." - People feel a total lack of control over the changes affecting them.

- "I am at the whim of much greater forces." - People are uncertain about what to do but know it will be difficult.

- "It's a giant puzzle. It's up to us to pick up the pieces, but they are huge and heavy." According to Dr. Olson, "These grim, sometimes violent metaphors reveal deeper, largely unconscious orientations and emotions that, in turn, determine how people will react to attempts to solve the crisis." - For example, people frame the causes and solution to the economic crisis in terms of social imbalance. ("The people who caused the current mess are getting off scot free.") The term bailout reinforces this perspective.