It occurred to me that every single media source I see lately — newspaper, television, Internet news sites — just can’t wait to scream how badly the stock market is doing. Front page, top story, breaking news. Surely these media people must realize that the panicky sell-offs that cause these downward slides are directly attributable to fear-based actions and reactions of the brokerage houses.
Seems to me what we might have going on here is a perverse downward spiral. The market drops a bit, the news media headline it, the market gets scared and drops more, and the media headline “another drop” — on and on.
I think an intelligent media would relax and think about soft-pedaling the economic horrors just a bit.
Steve Jackson
Lenexa
There may not be much positive the government can do that it is not doing. The problem is that they are pushing a number of expensive social programs that may have a negative effect. This is no time to embrace new long lasting, expensive programs. But is Obama's main objective recovery or is it redistribution?
Posted by: Engineer | March 07, 2009 at 04:24 PM
"Are you better off now than you were a month ago?"
The current recession is 15 months old, not "a month".
The media played their part in building the bubble, they're now playing their part in poppin' it.
I wonder how well sales are doing for the books, "Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market" written in November 2000 or "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market" published in February 2006.
I remember Neil Cavuto, in 2007, urging America to vote Republican and promising we would be rewarded with the DOW's continued march from 14,000 into the sky.
CNBC is currently engaged in a jihad against Bernie Madoff, only to prove how atypical he is of Wall Street. Bernie is, in fact, the Wall Street archetype.
Posted by: whispering_to_kc | March 07, 2009 at 01:51 PM
And just think we are only in the third month of the second term of Jimmy Carter.........
Posted by: BudRog | March 07, 2009 at 09:48 AM
The media hasn't been helpful or particularly honest in a while.
Having said that, even institutional investors have lost confidence in Obama. When they start selling off, that's when we lose the trillions we've lose since inauguration.
Whispering to kc: Are you better off now than you were a month ago?
Posted by: Roger Lambert | March 07, 2009 at 08:15 AM
Hmmm. ODS. Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Posted by: whispering_to_kc | March 07, 2009 at 01:39 AM
The media has always done this. But until lately Obama wasn't lurking in the background.
Posted by: Engineer | March 06, 2009 at 11:05 PM