Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Journalistic Malpractice
Published on NewsBusters (http://newsbusters.org)
33 Shocking Facts About Obama's Economy Media Shamefully Ignore
By Noel Sheppard
Created 08/25/2013 - 11:14am
On Tuesday, Michael T. Snyder, author of the gloom and doom book "The Beginning of the End," wrote a fabulous piece titled "33 Shocking Facts Which Show How Badly The Economy Has Tanked Since Obama Became President":
Here are Snyder's first five shocking facts:Barack Obama has been running around the country taking credit for an "economic recovery", but the truth is that things have not gotten better under Obama. Compared to when he first took office, a smaller percentage of the working age population is employed, the quality of our jobs has declined substantially and the middle class has been absolutely shredded. If we are really in the middle of an "economic recovery", why is the homeownership rate the lowest that it has been in 18 years? Why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by nearly 50 percent while Obama has been in the White House? Why has the national debt gotten more than 6 trillion dollars larger during the Obama era? Obama should not be "taking credit" for anything when it comes to the economy. In fact, he should be deeply apologizing to the American people.
#1 When Barack Obama entered the White House, 60.6 percent of working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.7 percent of working age Americans have a job.
#2 Since Obama has been president, seven out of every eight jobs that have been "created" in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs.
#3 The number of full-time workers in the United States is still nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#4 It is hard to believe, but an astounding 53 percent of all American workers now make less than $30,000 a year.
#5 40 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.
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As you look at the entire list, you have to conclude that if the media had done a better job of reporting the nation's true economic condition, it's almost impossible to believe Obama would have been reelected last year.
Conceivably the worst example of media malpractice pertaining to this president is how the press have done their darnedest to mis-, under-, or just NOT report economic data.
Contrast this with the barrage of excessive, gloom and doom reporting that occurred in the fall of 2008 which basically handed the White House to its current resident.
Looking back, there's no question that the hysteria prevalent throughout the media after Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy was unwarranted.
That's not to say the nation and the world did not experience a financial crisis. Instead, the gloom and doom was greatly exaggerated, so much so that the impact on the markets was far worse than it would have been had the press been more measured in their reporting on the crisis.
But that wasn't the goal.
Far from it, the modus operandi was to make it appear the world was coming to an end, it was all the fault of George W. Bush and the Republican Party - despite Democrats having taken control of both chambers of Congress in January 2007! - and Barack Obama was the messiah offering his brilliant stewardship to save us all.
Once the media succeeded in scaring the public into voting for the junior Senator from Illinois, the gloom and doom disappeared, and the media immediately changed their tune.
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Thankfully, the stock market has fully recovered and is now close to all-time highs. Real estate is also doing much better.
However, most honest economists would argue that both crashed far worse than they should have going to absurd discounts as a result of the hysteria.
Beyond this, the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve - including an extended period of quantitative easing whereby our central bank is actually monetizing the debt by buying treasuries in order to keep interest rates at historic lows - are largely the cause for the strong markets.
What this means is that just as economic conditions weren't as bad as they seemed in the fall of 2008, they're not as strong as the markets are indicating today.
And, if the media were honestly reporting Snyder's 33 shocking facts, it seems a metaphysical certitude that public perception about the economy as well as the nation's fiscal condition would be far more negative.
This likely would have made it impossible for Obama to win reelection, and would certainly diminish the public's view of ObamaCare as well as ongoing budget negotiations.
But as long as the press hide the truth about economic and fiscal conditions while reporting a more rosy recovery than is reality, much of the in the dark citizenry will support a president whose policies appear not to be in their interest.
With that in mind, readers are advised to review all 33 shocking facts in order to separate themselves from the uninformed masses.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
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