Posted on 06/29/2008 7:42:04 AM PDT by foutsc
The worst economy since the great depression…
Remember the constant bleating from the press and the anti-Bush crowd about how the Bush administration “cherry picked” intelligence? They allege that the president chose only those bits of information that fit his plans and ignored everything else.
Well, the press has been cherry picking economic news for years. How many news items have you seen featuring some town, family, or business that’s doing ok, despite everything? How often do you hear or read something that puts the housing “crisis” in perspective (it’s not a crisis). Falling prices mean those who previously could not afford a home now may be able to. How many articles have you seen comparing unemployment, wage growth or gas prices to those of Europe? (Hint: We’re the envy of the rest of the world) Hav
To answer my own question, we don’t hear any positive stories. The press trots out every hard case they can find: Children with rare, expensive diseases, people who lost their house because they couldn’t pay the mortgage that was 80% of their income, old people (who used to be reliable Republicans) who’ve have had some misfortune befall them.
This constant drumbeat affects the national psyche. People are in a sour mood. Gas and grocery prices are up and wages are not keeping pace. And the press throws gasoline on the fire with a constant torrent of negativity. And we eat it up. We have become a nation of whiners.
This despite the fact that, compared to our forbears, we are better educated, drive nicer cars, live in bigger homes, have more money, and generally enjoy more luxuries. The only thing we have less of is sacrifice.
There will always be a hard-luck story somewhere that the press can point to. It still won’t be as bad as the great depression.
I fear the press is destroying my memory. Wasn’t the 2001-2002 “economic crisis” also described in these worst since the depression terms? The same recession that is now being described as one of the mildest ever?
It’s all a democrat blame game. they can’t survive as a party without negative reporting and bad news.
The ecomony is not that bad. They are making it seem that way because they want the parties to change over...
A better description is the worse government since The Depression.
What no one is talking about is that there has not been a negative quarter yet.
Look .. in order to even be in a recession .. there has to have been at least 3 consecutive quarters in which there was a downturn. THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED YET!!
Even with the housing slump (and this kind of thing happens all the time - I worked in commercial real estate and I can vouch for that). Besides .. a lot of people are now able to take advantage of the lower prices on homes. Just down the street from where I work - homes have dropped $100,000 in price - making them affordable to a whole ton of people.
The oil issue could be solved in the stroke of a pen. An Executive Order - drill in ANWR - would drop the price in the blink of an eye. Bush probably won’t do it because it would undercut McCain (but I’ll bet McCain would have done it to Bush).
There are too many people who are paying more attention to what the media is doing - and a majority of Americans know the media is biased.
Of course, you will always have those who slavishly follow the drive-by’s but the drive-by’s are losing readership and viewership daily. Just the other day I saw a report on the Palm Beach Post laying off 40% of it’s employees - they are a horrible liberal rag - the same idiots who went after Rush.
You would have thought that the drive-by’s would have been paying attention when FOX came on board. Instead of emulating what FOX was doing - they set out to demonize FOX - AND IT HASN’T WORKED - but they continue on their chosen path - losing more and more readers and viewers every day.
And .. I believe the drive-by’s are holding all the good stories about Iraq (in case Obama gets elected) and they can use it to benefit Obama.
My point is that bad times stink...and people seem to have little perspective when dealing with them. 2001-2002 dot com bust/post 9/11 downturn felt bad at the time. I remember it being reported as the worst hard time since the depression...now it turns out it was one of the mildest recessions in history. People lack perspective about the present. Doesn’t mean we’re not in hard times, but it also doesn’t mean these are the worst times.
I like most of what you said, but compared to what I've seen in the past, we're definitely not in hard times. They're just not quite as good as they were a year ago. 5.5% ue rate is still rather good. I don't see the bellies shrinking much on most of the people I see. When I think of hard times I think of the thirties and the Dust Bowl days. We're not anywhere near that.
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