Posted on 08/19/2005 5:22:29 AM PDT by OESY
The paradox of the year is why so many Americans tell pollsters they feel bad about an economy that's been so good, with solid job growth and corporate profits, rising wages and home prices, and a huge decline in the budget deficit. Perhaps one reason is because the media keep saying the economy stinks.
That's the conclusion of... the Media Research Center, which finds that so far this year 62% of the news stories on the Big Three TV networks have portrayed the U.S. economy in negative fashion. The "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive stories by an overwhelming ratio of 4 to 1," the MRC reports.
...[A] CBS Evening News story on July 22 said that the economy is "very tenuous. It could fall apart at any moment. One piece of bad news, one additional terrorist attack, one negative corporate earnings, and it goes right down again." Contrast that funeral dirge with what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that same day: "The outlook is one of sustained economic growth."...
Media coverage of President Bush's tax cuts has been particularly slanted. During the 2003 tax-cut debate, three of every four major TV network news stories were negative. The favorite criticisms were liberal echoes that it would bust the budget and favor the rich. Earlier this year, a news story on National Public Radio announced that "as everyone knows, the primary cause of the budget deficit was the Bush tax cuts." No word yet on whom NPR is crediting with this year's revenue surge of $262 billion. Robert Rubin?
Given all of this doom-and-gloom reporting, maybe the surprise is that Americans are nonetheless behaving with their typical optimism, buying goods and services, bidding up the stock market, and creating new businesses....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Just the opposite.
As America becomes an even more ignorant nation, FOX News and conservative radio will actually start a decline.
CNN, CBS and others have yet to see their brightest days. They will be the state run centralized government mouthpiece someday. Ignorance in America is on a parabolic curve upward.
You are far to generous in your assessment of how many Americans are actually economically literate. I would put the number much closer to 10% I have for many years subscribed to the "90-10 rule". It means that 10% of the people are aware and 90% haven't the first clue what is going on around them either locally or in the world generally.
Many people make the mistake of thinking the stock market is the DOW, S&P and NASDAQ only. Probably 80% or more of the population also doesn't know that plenty of money can be made even when the market tanks.
Look at the graphs in post 11.
Relative to China, yes.
I wouldn't be so quick to include Russia in that analysis.
Their military prowess took quite a kick to the groin with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But your point is well made.
It was the height of idiocy to have people scraping along to make ends meet while at the same time the government was destroying large quantities of agricultural commodities just to support the incomes of U.S. farmers.
Why do you think that is? It's more because when something first comes out there is limited supply and high demand than the stuff gets cheaper. How is it cheaper to make the 17" monitor now than it was two years ago? When the producct first came out they were taking high profits. Now, with a fair amount of saturation they are selling at a normal price. They are still making money off of the products today but in order to reach more of the market they had to lower the price.
That may not have included the 'guns' money being spent in Iraq in the death of a thousand cuts. The 'guns' money being spent in Iraq has not added to our strength relative to Russia/China. They must wonder at our inability to overcome the resistance of car bombs.
Aside from World War II, has there ever been a single year in the last seven decades in which factory employment has actually increased?
Please pardon me. I really meant to say "some people are putting huge sums of cash into real estate." There was a FR poster yesterday who said he paid cash for a home. He affirmed an earlier post about people investing their 401{k) funds into real estate.
Defense appropriations have increased dramatically in the last couple of years, but a large portion of it goes unnoticed because Congress has been funding the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan "off-line" (i.e., these numbers aren't included in the Federal budget figures -- which is why all the budget deficit estimates you read about are a total fraud).
Your right the market has gone up the last 3 years...and the money I have put in the market since 03 has done somewhat well.
However that does not mean diddly squat to all the people that have had all their pension money in the market before 2000. My Janus, putnam funds etc have still not gone back to what they were in 2000 and in many of my funds they are worth less than what I have put into them.
In the last three years the market has MOVED UP quite a bit. In fact, the chart you are asking me to look at proves my facts yet again.
That's an easy one . . . they make more of them now, so the cost per unit is lower.
Thats my point too. You have to look further back than three years. Most people started saving before that.
The stock market is NOT lagging, it is doing great.
True, people are putting large sums into real estate:
1] The Dollar has declined a lot and the Europeans are purchasing homes in America for investment purposes.
2] Low interest rates/low mortgage rates.
3] Flippers who got burned in the stock market downturn who think real estate is nirvana--they will get burned twice. But for now, they are adding to the upward pressure in real estate prices.
With stocks, you can buy put options , buy put futures or sell stock short and make BIG money when the stockmarket goes down, but it is hard to make big money when the real estate market tanks, which it will do when the Dollar starts rising more against the Euro and mortgage rates start rising.
And the price of gas was?? (in 1990)
We have indeed gotten weaker militarily under Bush versus our potential enemies, even though total DOD spending has gone up. The Ruskies and Chicoms are not spending on this "human resources" crap. They are spending their money on late generation startegic and tactical weaponry.
Right you are. The ending of double taxation which was to be invested to create jobs just goosed up the market.
While pointing out that it is blasphemous to refer to Buchanan's utterances as prophecies, I'll note than none of his economic predictions have as yet come true.
But then--insight was never a feature of the GWB-bots.
Using leftist rhetoric does little to convince others of the value of the Buchanan brand of socialism.
The fact is that while Buchanan is a sworn enemy of economic freedom, the President is not exactly a firm friend of it.
While I support the President's foreign policy and eschew Buchanan's blame-America-first inanity, the President's economic policies are quite open to criticism and I have criticized them frequently.
I don't oppose Buchanan's socialist rhetoric because I support Ptresident Bush - I oppose Buchanan's socialism because I oppose all forms of socialism. Period.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.