The economy is recovering really well, but the media isn't about to tell you that

[gevorg]

as long as the Fed keeps the interest rates near free (for the banks, not you), the economy is still in pretty shaky condition

oh yeah, and there is also inflation, inflation, and inflation

 

[Jhhnn]

as long as the Fed keeps the interest rates near free (for the banks, not you), the economy is still in pretty shaky condition

oh yeah, and there is also inflation, inflation, and inflation

Funny that. People who rely on data & facts say that inflation is currently less than 3%-

http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/data/us-inflation/mcpi.cfm

Or is it all just a giant conspiracy cooked up by the Lizard People?

 

[Patranus]

Funny that. People who rely on data & facts say that inflation is currently less than 3%-

http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/data/us-inflation/mcpi.cfm

Or is it all just a giant conspiracy cooked up by the Lizard People?

All you have to do is go to the store to see what is going on.
I don't need some bureaucrat to tell me something i can confirm in my local supermarket.

 

[sportage]

The economy is recovering really well, but the media isn't about to tell you that

Naturally.
The news media as a whole "is" the news. They have long stopped "reporting" the news. When you have Fox and NBC and all the rest, owned by companies/persons with an ax to grind, their reporting is definitely slanted to reflect the overall views of the owners.
And the so called reporters only interest is with making a big time celebrity name for themselves. They are simply actors told what do to, and told what to report.

To the media, news isn't news anymore. Drama is news. They create then report only the drama, usually when none really exists.

They are all involved, not just Fox News, but Fox has definitely taken drama to a new level.

Just as with China, Russia, and Iran, I really don't know where one would turn for real news in the old USA?
Fox, NBC and Chuck Todd simply represent tabloid news.
You know...
"Baby born with massive Martian head attached".
"Catholics will burn Obama at the stake in 2012".
"Plane crash kills three hundred, but first... Paris Hilton's new look, coming up next".
That sorta stuff....

 

[dmcowen674]

Naturally.
The news media as a whole "is" the news. They have long stopped "reporting" the news. When you have Fox and NBC and all the rest, owned by companies/persons with an ax to grind, their reporting is definitely slanted to reflect the overall views of the owners.
And the so called reporters only interest is with making a big time celebrity name for themselves. They are simply actors told what do to, and told what to report.

To the media, news isn't news anymore. Drama is news. They create then report only the drama, usually when none really exists.

They are all involved, not just Fox News, but Fox has definitely taken drama to a new level.

Just as with China, Russia, and Iran, I really don't know where one would turn for real news in the old USA?
Fox, NBC and Chuck Todd simply represent tabloid news.
You know...
"Baby born with massive Martian head attached".
"Catholics will burn Obama at the stake in 2012".
"Plane crash kills three hundred, but first... Paris Hilton's new look, coming up next".
That sorta stuff....

I think NPR ids the only actual news organization but not 100% sure on that.

The rest are classified as "Entertainment Organizations" as declared by the U.S. Supreme court just before Obama came into office.

According to the USSC they can have the name news, such as Fox news, ABC news, CBS news etc but they can put 100% fiction on the air calling it news under free speech.

As long as it does not fall under the category of yelling fire in a theatre I understand.

Basically everything you see and hear in the news is the equivalent of the War of the Worlds of aliens landing in New Jersey field broadcast and is perfectly legal.

 

[GoPackGo]

I think NPR ids the only actual news organization but not 100% sure on that.

The rest are classified as "Entertainment Organizations" as declared by the U.S. Supreme court just before Obama came into office.

According to the USSC they can have the name news, such as Fox news, ABC news, CBS news etc but they can put 100% fiction on the air calling it news under free speech.

As long as it does not fall under the category of yelling fire in a theatre I understand.

Basically everything you see and hear in the news is the equivalent of the War of the Worlds of aliens landing in New Jersey field broadcast and is perfectly legal.

ALIENS!!!! That explains Jersey Shore!

 

[dmcowen674]

ALIENS!!!! That explains Jersey Shore!

That's my old stomping grounds, Asbury Park

Jersey girls are hot

 

[Zorba]

I think NPR ids the only actual news organization but not 100% sure on that.

The news on PBS is pretty good and informative, but it can put you to sleep in a hurry.

 

[GoPackGo]

That's my old stomping grounds, Asbury Park

Jersey girls are hot

Yeah...but the TV show is SCARY

 

[wirednuts]

Obama has average something like ~2% GDP growth while Reagan averaged ~6% GDP growth.

No, the economy is NOT recovering really well.

can a 6% growth be sustained every year forever? that sounds unlikely. its capatilism, were going to have ups and downs and the economy is going to expand only so much every few years. isnt 2% growth still above the population rate therefore a growing economy is a good one? i know were still behind what we once were, but a lot of that was fake anway

 

[sm625]

The problem with toolbags like this is that he doesnt credit the 5 trillion dollars of deficit spending that brought us those "rosy" statistics. And he sure as hell wont acknowledge that it was an utterly massive debt laden asset bubble that caused the recession in the first place. And we still have not even recovered half the jobs lost since the last time we fell for their stupid bull. Jesus, job growth hasnt even kept up with population growth. My god is it no wonder the media wont cover it? People are still hurting from the last time they got scammed so bad. Look at this crap:

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-Boom-Will-Bust/dp/0385514352

Seriously, open that link and look at the cover of that book if you've never seen it. It's is a testament of mass madness. (Say it in true Howard Beale fashion.)

This stuff was all over the media. You think they want to pull that crap again after most of them have lost half their readers and ad revenue? Ha! They may be controlled by the debt pushers, but they still want to stay in business.

 

[Texashiker]

James Altucher did an op-ed piece in TechCrunch about his sunny outlook on the economy and how it's been minimized, mocked and quieted every chance the media has gotten. Good news doesn't make for page hits, perhaps?

The jobs are gone, they are never coming back, and the economy is never going to recover.

We will have short periods where things "look" like they are recovering. But until the US gets the jobs back that supported the middle class, the economy will never fully recover.

~ EDIT ~

There was once a time when someone could finish high school, get a decent paying job at a factory, shipyard, steel mill,,, buy a home and have a family.

The majority of jobs that supported the middle class economy have been sent overseas.

With no job market to support the middle class, the economy is doomed.

 

[blackangst1]

The jobs are gone, they are never coming back, and the economy is never going to recover.

We will have short periods where things "look" like they are recovering. But until the US gets the jobs back that supported the middle class, the economy will never fully recover.

~ EDIT ~

There was once a time when someone could finish high school, get a decent paying job at a factory, shipyard, steel mill,,, buy a home and have a family.

The majority of jobs that supported the middle class economy have been sent overseas.

With no job market to support the middle class, the economy is doomed.

And there was once a time when the environment wasnt much of a concern either. You want those issues back too? Look. I know we need jobs. But I dont necessarily think the days of the assembly line are the answer. We're still reaping the seeds we sowed from our glorious manufacturing days...asbestos poisoning...the Potomac River...etc etc etc.

 

[Texashiker]

We're still reaping the seeds we sowed from our glorious manufacturing days...asbestos poisoning...the Potomac River...etc etc etc.

We are reaping the harvest from the seeds sowed of irresponsibility.

Manufacturing can be eco friendly.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

If Repubs had their way, the economy would be a lot worse. Cut, cut, Cut! Force layoffs of govt workers & contractors to vanquish unemployment! Kill Foodstamps & UI! Voucherize Medicare! Give Wall St a round of applause & another Tax Cut!

The man of myth & legend, St Ronnie? He didn't have to deal with the aftermath of the greatest Repub sponsored flimflam since the crash of 1929. This one-

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/case-shiller-100-year-chart-2011-update/

So the latest housing boom/bust cycle was all a "Repub sponsored flimflam"? Really? Please elaborate.

 

[blackangst1]

We are reaping the harvest from the seeds sowed of irresponsibility.

Manufacturing can be eco friendly.

Yes it can. At a price. At those prices, the days you speak of will never return. Unless, of course, we also return to what made some of those prices available.

 

[woolfe9999]

There's been a lot of news about the improving job market.

There's plenty of news out there, but the OP's editorial makes a solid point about something I've noticed for a long time now. When economic data is delivered in the MSM, the positives are almost always accompanied by a slew of qualifiers. The negatives are not.

Take, for example, monthly employment data from the BLS report. When the employment rate goes down, you'll get a lengthy discussion of the fact that the participation rate went down along with it (i.e. in November). However, when the employment rate goes down without the participation rate dropping, they don't tell you that the participation rate didn't drop (December, January). Also, in past months when the unemployment rate went up but the participation rate went up along with it, they didn't mention the participation rate. If good news has a qualifier, they'll let you know. If bad news has a qualifier, you have to look at the raw data to find it. This is why I skip the media reports and go straight to the BLS report in PDF.

Also, far more editorial space is given to those with extremely negative, doomsaying predictions. And I'm not talking about Foxnews here. I'm talking MSNMoney and CNN. The stuff on the Eurozne alone irritates the shit out of me. If the Eurozone doesn't experience total economic Armageddon in the foreseeable future, then almost every person who's contributed editorials to the MSM about that topic is going to have to eat crow.

This beggars the idea of a so-called "liberal media." You'd expect a liberal biased media to support the current administration by putting a positive spin on economic data or at least not putting a negative spin on it. It isn't that the MSM has a conservative bias. It's that negativity sells. This is the true bias of the media that gets overlooked in these ideological arguments we keep having.

- wolf

 

[sm625]

This beggars the idea of a so-called "liberal media." You'd expect a liberal biased media to support the current administration by putting a positive spin on economic data or at least not putting a negative spin on it.

They are putting a positive spin on it. Not 1 out of 20 people has a clue how bad our economy really is.

 

[bfdd]

A lot of the stability we're seeing is due to the instability in Europe. They're worse off than we are, so we don't feel the brunt. It's not great, we're still flooding the market with cheap money QE QE QE. Stupid stupid stupid. Long term this isn't good.

 

[woolfe9999]

They are putting a positive spin on it. Not 1 out of 20 people has a clue how bad our economy really is.

Yes, and you're among that tiny percentage who knows the true facts. You have a privileged pipeline to the truth.

This is why the media is putting a negative spin on it. You only have to look at comments posted underneath the blogs that report the daily economic data. All positive information is written off as a conspiracy either of the government reporting agency, or the media, or both. All negative information from the exact same sources is instantly credited. The media is confirming people's beliefs. That's why they slant it negative. If the reporting is positive, people either ignore it or poo poo it.

Sorry, but you're an anonymous poster on an internet forum with a cliched opinion. Everyone on the interwebs says that the economy is much worse than it appears. Tell me something I haven't heard. Until proven otherwise, you don't know jack.

- wolf

 

[Texashiker]

Yes it can. At a price. At those prices, the days you speak of will never return. Unless, of course, we also return to what made some of those prices available.

That is the thing about the open and free market, its "supposed" to drive innovation.

Instead of some company making 100 million in profit, but dumping chemicals into the local river; how about the company only making 50 million in profit and find ways not to pollute.

Look at some of the rivers in China. It wont be long that the chinese government is going to have to do something to stop massive pollution. What is going to happen then? Will the companies pack up and move to Africa?

 

[blackangst1]

That is the thing about the open and free market, its "supposed" to drive innovation.

Instead of some company making 100 million in profit, but dumping chemicals into the local river; how about the company only making 50 million in profit and find ways not to pollute.

Look at some of the rivers in China. It wont be long that the chinese government is going to have to do something to stop massive pollution. What is going to happen then? Will the companies pack up and move to Africa?

Absolutely youre correct. But, as we all know, a true 100% open and free market is impractical for one reason alone: mankind. Just as man cannot be trusted to provide 100% fair rule over others, mankind also cannot be trusted to be responsible 100% of the time. Thus, the best solution is what we have: a mixed market. Does it need tweaking here and there? Absolutely, and always will. But to long for the niceties of days past all the while expecting none of the uglies that made some of those niceties possible is...well...naive and irresponsible.

 

[yllus]

A lot of the stability we're seeing is due to the instability in Europe. They're worse off than we are, so we don't feel the brunt. It's not great, we're still flooding the market with cheap money QE QE QE. Stupid stupid stupid. Long term this isn't good.

How would somewhere else in the world that's worse off make things better here?

They are putting a positive spin on it. Not 1 out of 20 people has a clue how bad our economy really is.

How bad is it?

 

[dank69]

They are putting a positive spin on it. Not 1 out of 20 people has a clue how bad our economy really is.

...


How bad is it?

 

[IGBT]

five million unemployed have given up looking for work.