The New, Media-Numbed Normal
Associated Press stories on the economy and the fiscal cliff during the previous week tell us that we’re in for four more years of having the so-called “essential global news network” and the rest of the establishment press tell us that we aren’t really seeing what we can see right in front of us. Meanwhile, their headlines and the stories they choose to ignore demonstrate a dogged determination to keep those who don’t follow the news closely from seeing what they don’t want them to see.
The AP’s headline writers and Christopher Rugaber already had their minds made up about what last Friday’s Employment Situation Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics would mean even before it was released.
In a dispatch the previous evening headlined “U.S. job market resilient despite budget fight,” Rugaber decided that the additional 155,000 jobs analysts predicted the report would show constituted proof that “the job market held up” during December’s fiscal cliff negotiations between the White House and Congress.
The AP brought out a deeper shovel the next morning just ahead of the report, claiming that it “was expected to show underlying strength.” When BLS’s number exactly matched consensus predictions, Rugaber and co-author Paul Wiseman wrote that it was in line with “the solid but unspectacular monthly pace of the past two years.”
Horse manure. The two-year average of 153,000 is just barely above the 150,000 jobs which need to be added every month just to keep up with population growth. What’s “solid” about that?
While Rugaber and the rest of the press write and talk about resilience, the raw (i.e., not seasonally adjusted) jobs numbers from BLS, in combination with still far too high unemployment, tell us a far different story. Here are the actual changes in employment for the last four months of the past 13 years:
Note that both in total and in the private sector, the net change in jobs was worse than 2011 in three of the final four months of 2012. Additionally, December’s contractions of 243,000 and 103,000, respectively, were worse than December 2005 and 2006 — years during which the establishment media was mostly unimpressed with how the job market was performing.
In a decent economy, the monthly jobs numbers would be beating the pants off of that period, simply because there’s so much economic slack. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rates in December 2005 and December 2006 — in the midst of that supposedly God-awful Bush economy — were 4.9 percent and 4.4%, respectively. Monthly seasonally adjusted job additions of 150,000 or so are acceptable when unemployment is so low, and it turns out that the economy added a more than acceptable 2.5 million jobs in 2005, followed by 2 million in 2006.
Like your articles, Tom. However, horse manure doesn’t nearly measure the breadth of the apples being spoon fed to the rubes still dumb enough to believe happy days are right around the corner. If only those evil Republicans could learn and compromise with Dear Leader, everything would be hunky-dory.
Remember? Our debt rating downgrade had nothing to do with the amount of debt and everything to do with our lack of political compromise (cough cough), and I am fully convinced a majority of Americans believe this.
If these voters had any clue to the amount of real net loss they had incurred the last four years under the banner of “stimulus”, “Government Motors”, “unemployment insurance”, “green energy”, and interest, perhaps they wouldn’t feel so bubbly about their repeat vote.
I won’t mention lowest market participation rates or median income decreasing 8.2% in the last four years. That’s much too difficult a concept to grasp for anyone dumb enough to vote for Barack Obama not once, but twice.
So I’ll leave you with this little nugget that apparently does not garner near enough attention from the Obama lackeys:
My family and I drink exclusively Braum’s milk – a regional dairy here. I found a receipt in a sack this weekend for a gallon of 1% milk approximately one year old. The price was $2.83.
Tonight the same gallon of milk cost me $3.90.
Give us more Solyndra and put a stop to the hydraulic fracking!
Friday night they revealed the GDP estimate for the 4th quarter was below 1%….how could the AP and all those business channels and magazines not notice that the economy was stalled in September?
Well, people really know, deep down, that economic times are bad, unemployment is still high, and that the economic outlook for this country is stagnant at best, horrific at worst (especially when you consider our national debt).
But do you know why people really don’t care anymore? Because the Federal and state governments are there now to provide people with just about everything they need to take a few years off if they want to. You have about 99 weeks of unemployment (or at least more than a year’s worth in most states), relaxed welfare requirements, endless food stamps, increased “disability” benefits, endless government support for outrageous student loans, and let’s not forget the greatest entitlement of them all, Obamacare, coming to a paycheck near you real, real, soon. And this only scratches the surface when you look at the public housing benefits and the free public school educations that’s out there as well. Given all of this, there really isn’t any immediate need for people to find work. And they certainly are NOT going to vote against the person or the political party that keeps giving them all of this “free stuff.”
And there lies the problem. None of this stuff is “free.” Somebody gets stuck with the bill, and that “somebody” is YOU. It sure isn’t Federal or state workers, especially union workers, who get fat government contracts, pensions, and benefits to keep voting for Democrats. Nope, it’s you jerks out there that actually worked hard for a living, making your own way in life, and not accepting handouts from anybody. YOU are the ones who are going to end up without a chair when the music stops in this vast game of Musical Chairs. And the sad part is, not only does the government NOT care about this, they know it and have no shame in continuing this practice of sticking other people and future generations of Americans with the bills for their greed.
Elections DO have consequences and you’re about to see one heck of a consequence as a result of this past election. You will see the American government bankrupt by 2016, especially if we see no major reduction in government spending before then. What to do? Start learning Greek, because we’ll be just like Greece in a few years, so we may as well be able to speak to the people who will be joining us on the global unemployment line. So either learn Greek or elect as many conservatives to Congress as possible in 2014. But, given all the “free stuff” Americans are getting today, I’m not sure that will happen.
“YOU are the ones who are going to end up without a chair when the music stops……”
That is when the real fight will begin. Meantime, the parking lots at the grocery store & the mall remain full daily.
Us working Schmoes thought elections have consequences in 2012 and look what we got. We thought for sure that common sense would prevail, but we went to bed that night feeling like we got kicked up the side of the head. But we still felt compelled to go to work the next day so we can help support all the takers cuz someone has to try to keep this god damned country working.
“But do you know why people really don’t care anymore?”
They do care – about themselves and their own. Over 40% of our GDP has government, large and in charge, at its center and all of those who derive their living from government spending are firmly committed to it. When you add in those who receive entitlements, and those who may be in the private sector but have a spouse, family member or friends on the various public employee gravy trains, you can see that there is absolutely no way that this is going to end by political process.
You can also fault the wealthy who fund the politicians in their campaigns of misdirection and disinformation. You could institute a 100% income tax on them and they wouldn’t care. Why should they? They are already rich and nobody is talking about taxing wealth.
And then there is the MSM – enough has been said about their role in this mess.
As Libertyship correctly points out – it is the private sector middle class who is getting hosed here. Not only through taxation but by forfeiture of the American dream for ourselves and our children.
Its becoming clear to me that the Republicans are afraid of hugo-bama.Unlike the rest of us who are deflected from the truth by his judo media,they get to look evil in the eye! Even i remember those large holding pens that he had built and all of the hollow point bullets that he bought.I’m not slap-myself-in-the-head stupid.
I disagree. Congressional Republicans love Obama. Obama cranked-up annual federal spending by over one-third for the “stimulus” in 2009 and continued that level of spending for the next three years. Most Republicans in Congress said nothing. Why? Because Obama gave them the expanded federal government that they could not have created themselves. Also, Obama not only retained the Patriot Act, renditions, drone bombings, warrantless tracking and bugging, TSA groping, and the War on Drugs–he expanded all of them. Republicans are not libertarians: they LOVE big intrusive government just as much as left-wingers.
DING! DING! DING! We have a winna!
The US media are relative babes-in-arms compared to the European press.
Over here we’re being bankrupted by our EU leaders, but you’d never know it from reading a non-British newspaper.
There’s a great take on this tragi-farce in:”Butch and the Sundance” at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
Not sure blaming the media is the way to feel better. Maybe focus on issues and stop lving in a bubble. It’s like Newt during the campaign promising $2 gas and saying that if the President was reelected we would have $6 gas. I filled up yesterday at $2.84. I think acknowledging some of the realities of modern life might bring the republicans some rejuvenation. Otherwise, once the older, caucasion population dies off, we will have to find a real second party. Let’s just remember what the press did during Bush, Condi and Chaney WMD fiasco. Also, remember Morris and Rove even on election night couldn’t accept reality. Reality is your problem.
Here’s the reality: nothing different is going to happen until the proverbial checks stop coming (when the small c’s run out of other people’s money).
I hope that you are not insinuating the reality of $2.84 gasoline is relevant to the reality of Obama. Being I worked in the Petroleum Industry for over 20 years, I know something about both the upstream and downstream industries.
While I commend our industry for its efficiencies which go completely unappreciated as ‘Big Oil’ a euphemism for corporate greed, I can assure you Ed the real reality is that gas could easily rise to $6.00. In fact, it is a small wonder and our ability to go to war with the most massive war machine ever constructed as the only thing preventing you from a distinct possibility of rationed gasoline – years ago. We won’t even mention the war on coal, the cost of electricity, refining capacity, Keystone pipeline, and the like in this debate.
I marvel at the wonders of horizontal drilling. But we still import 50% of our base crude every day. Don’t be lulled into Obama’s reality of everything is just great – we’re more vulnerable than we’ve ever been to outage. And since there would appear to me little plans to exploit our domestic resources under Obama, DON’T be surprised when your lights go out one day, unannounced.
That’s the real reality.
When the white European origin population dies off, you will learn what Zimbabwe is like.
Ok, lets forget the economy for a moment and compare some media coverage
why is it the warrantless wiretapping was a crime against the constutition under Bush but almost totally unexamined under Obama?
Why is it that drone strikes were war crimes under Bush but A-OK under Obama?
What happened to that daily news coverage of soldiers being killed in Afghanistan?
Obama totally closed Guantanamo just as promised …o w8. Not that you’d ever know reading the paper.
Homelessness was a serious and rising problem under Bush, but somehow seems to have magically disappeared under Obama. From the airwaves at least.
Katrina meant that Bush “didn’t care about black people” but Sandy was a model of organizational efficiency. If you only compare media coverage.
Obama’s administration lies to the nation for weeks about Bengazi, yet somehow it doesn’t matter.
For god’s sakes thousands of guns were delivered to the Mexican cartels, killing untold numbers of innocent Mexican civilians, an act of war, and even a few Americans, and yet he gets to declare “executive privilege” on all the relevant documents and get away unscathed. Did the press stop digging when Nixon tried claiming executive privilege on the watergate tapes?
The fact of the matter is that Obama could eat a baby on live TV and vile toadies like MSNBC would applaud him for discovering the food source that will end the recession. If any of the American left are serious about their professed beliefs they should call Obama on his very real transgressions and demand better. So far they just seem to be cheerleaders for team blue. I’m a libertarian, I disagreed with Bush and the Republican party on a lot. But I’d take him over Obama any day because all the worst abuses of Bush have been super-sized under Obama while he’s added plenty of his own. In my opinion it’s not just Obama that makes things dangerous, it’s the fact that the press will not cover any wrong that he does. No matter what they will not say a word against him and will even actively cover up the things that would and should make him look bad. This makes him far more dangerous than Bush.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/four-year-honeymoon_693769.html
The moment that really drove it home for me was in reading a major news article entitled “House Republicans easily defeat Obama budget”. The article then went on to talk for several pages about Republican “obstructionism”. Nowhere did it mention that not a single house DEMOCRAT voted for his budget either. Having not a single member of the house vote for the president’s budget, hell not even having a budget for 4 years is serious serious major news, but nope, it’s all the Republican’s fault. Somehow it was even their fault when Democrats controlled both houses of congress. If that’s the standard of reporting, then Obama himself is not even close to being our most serious problem.
If you get bitten by a rattlesnake whom do you blame, the snake, or the person who placed it in your boot?
I was just looking back over the National Academy Of Sciences report from this past summer that announced the Obama Administration’s official adoption of an Industrial Policy economic approach because other countries are doing it. Instead of complaining that nonprofit foundations refuse to “pay their fair share” and are being used as corrosive estate tax dodges, the report heralds the Gates Foundation as an example of philanthropy successfully becoming a policy player. Doesn’t pay taxes but advances the State’s need for ever more revenue as it assumes more control over private citizens.
Finally the report noted that governments all over the world were increasingly rejecting ideological limitations on the role of government and adherence to free market economics. All in all it’s quite a Fascist vision and guess what?
It erodes economic growth, reduces personal freedom, and rewards inefficient Cronyism. Of course private sector employment cannot thrive in such an environment. And this was before the 2nd Term reelection.
Great comment, excellent content. I hope everyone here reads that – truly the tail wagging the dog.
Robin, I always thought if America were to go down the toilet, it would be because we had chosen poorly for ourselves and the world would follow. Like an Obama reelection – only this reelection didn’t precede it; it simply reinforced the abject stupidity of following the failed path we were already on.
No, somewhere along the lines and I can’t pinpoint to exactly when, American leadership became so weak, rudderless and incompetent, that it looked to feckless Europe as shining paradigm of what to become. And as Europe sinks into the abyss, we still apparently haven’t figured that out Europe is cratering as we rush into become just like our former lessors.
Maybe this time we Americans will be the unfortunate ones to create history’s latest Hitler, Stalin or Mao. Never thought I would say that. But with the vacuum of the empty headed mush in many of our educated youth, in conjunction with our glorification of our “tolerance” and “diversification”, Pravda on the Potomac, our commitment to sheerly being entertained and always a victim, I don’t just find it a possibility – I think the mob is already set to be led. And someplace soon, the church will need to be silenced quietly and quickly.
All we need is a financial collapse to engage a perfect storm.
Thanks Tex.
I write about what’s really going on in education globally and how it is a back door means to take over control of the economy. Stealth and K-12 is the only institution virtually everyone passes through. So idealogues have been able to use their monopolies over who gets to teach, how, and what to transform the noetic system of both individuals and the culture as a whole. And genetic evolution may not be Lamarkian but cultural evolution is. That recognition was the driving force behind the creation of UNESCO in 1948 and its poisons have been leaching into the West ever since.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/blending-sustainability-and-education-to-gain-arational-nonlinear-minds-and-new-behaviors/ is the post where I talk about that NAS report. It also explains why our government is so determined to use education to take away the rational, logical mind of the Enlightenment and replace it with one driven by emotion and limited to what has been directly experienced. Back to instinct and intuition as if we were cavemen.
I think it is quite similar to the rationales used for refusing to teach slaves how to read. Limits the ability to recognize the extent of the subjugation and coercion. If symbol systems are a big part of what makes humans a unique species as history shows, all those mental abilities are now being consciously shut down. Big Business has every incentive to play along as these education initiatives make Creative Destruction and innovations much less likely.
But there’s no mass prosperity in this vision. Which is why there’s a push out of UN and other groups to substitute “the quality of our personal relationships with one another” for economic growth and consumption.
Never been a more important time to know history and economics.
I hope Tom will provide me a little latitude off subject, Robin. One most will find perfectly boring but I think applicable to what you just said. As I read through your response, I did ponder, thanking God somebody affiliated with education realizes what is going on and is attempting to if not rectify at least publicize. Wished I had read from you ten years ago.
My children never saw a public school – strictly private, and though we are far from rich, my wife and I lived comfortably even with the additional burden. Frankly, it was my perception that private schools were the public schools of about 40 years ago, your main benefit of discipline and parents of like mind. There’s no magic to the equation – simply good administration, good teachers, loving parents.
I find it interesting that you mentioned the year 1948, because I can recall an equally incredibly liberal SCOTUS that reared its ugly head at precisely the same time bringing with it such euphemisms as “separation of church and state” which they ran up the flag pole with many more and we adopted. Perhaps that is that moment in time I can’t completely identify – not Woodstock – but shortly after 1948 and its greasy tentacles took a measure of time to spread through the land.
Anyway, just an observation about your comment which I could talk about for hours: why our government is so determined to use education to take away the rational, logical mind may have already excelled in their goal, in conjunction with social media and entertainment.
My now grown daughters, one in med school and one to graduate from college this year, took a Christmas trip to Orlando, my wife realizing with serious boyfriends and careers blooming, our days of family vacations of four are quickly coming to an end.
Do you know that even at Disney World, with all the spectacular, rides, Christmas lights and entertainment, I would venture 75% of our 25 and under youth were more glued to their Iphones than their surroundings? I watched it play out every day. Playing pop psychiatrist, I would stand in line and talk to these kids realizing most apparently in some form of arrested development, almost zombie like in interaction. Practical zero communication skills and less interest than the next text message.
I left thinking we’ve lost this country and woe be to my children.
Wonderful comment.
During the hyper inflation of the Weimar Republic, people with juice managed to do well. They used their influence to borrow money from the government, and based on that, rented buildings, hired workers, and produced products at low cost. When it was time to pay back the loans, they paid with hyperinflated money of little to no value, but collected from buyers in foreign currency, or vast sums of hyperinflated money. Workers were paid daily, and took their money to the market in wheelbarrows to spend it before they could bring their food home in their purse.
Business adapted and even exploited inflation.
I can explain it. It is not so much ideological as Imperial. DC has become Rome.
“DC to Detroit
One huge challenge is to elect Congressman and Senators that represent their States and Districts and not the District of Columbia. People like McConnell make me sick. He is supposed to represent Kentucky but lives in DC. His economic future (value of his house) and his lifestyle (great DC restaurants and entertainment) and his social circle (all his buds and neighbors having good jobs) depend on a vibrant DC economy. So does his next job – lobbyist.
The way that happens is to transfer wealth from the Nation to the Nations Capital,
We need elected people that are willing to layoff hundreds of thousands of government employees, contractors and rent-seekers. McConnell and his GOP ilk are never going to do that.
We need elected people that are willing to turn DC into Detroit.”
Y’know, that all sounds bad, and yet it’s not clear what the alternatives are. Our leading industrialists have been selling out the US manufacturing infrastructure for two generations, piously reciting “comparative advantage” when what they were doing is selling all the seed corn and pocketing the proceeds. It was the banksters who broke the system in 2008, with government connivance – which continues to this day.
If it were a Republican in office, I might welcome some statements of industrial policy. We don’t want any more of that than we need, but right now, it seems we need some. Yes it has a horrible history, it leads almost certainly to corruption and fascism. Yet, there it is. The bigger problem is with President Solyndra in the White House you just know what kind of crap is going to come next, the corruption and fascism are right out front and the brains are nowhere to be found.
“Our leading industrialists have been selling out the US manufacturing infrastructure for two generations, piously reciting “comparative advantage” when what they were doing is selling all the seed corn and pocketing the proceeds.”
Sorry, this just isn’t true. The transformation of the US manufacturing industry has been and continues to be driven by high taxation, government regulations, globalization of markets, efficient transportation systems, unionization and the general cost of local labor versus elsewhere in the world. But meme’s like yours are entrenched and it just isn’t worth the effort to try to dislodge them.
According to an article by the AP which appeared in the Washington Times of all places, Brown and California have turned the budget-disaster corner.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/10/calif-gov-brown-california-budget-back-in-the-blac/
What are we to make of this?
It’s projected that we have turned the corner. It’s not certain that the new taxes will produce as promised. The cows with the sorest teats may be running out the barn door, as happens when the milk quotas go up. The >$250K sore teats are promised to get manhandled further for only seven years, but we know what happens when “millionaire taxes” are enacted.
Jerry Brown does have some awareness of the necessity of favorable climates for business to prosperity and calm electorates. When I read this this morning, I read the quote about using different means to achieve “progressive goals.” He is nothing if not an astute politician, one of the most astute.
Whether or not we get back into the black will depend a great deal on the tax and regulatory environment, and not just whether he can make politically palatable cuts.
I like Jerry Brown sometimes, or at least I try. I’m sure he knows when he’s lying. He went on the Larry Elder show the other day to talk mostly about the Bullet Train, and he and Larry mixed it up pretty good on that and other issues. And of course Brown is lying at bullet train speeds about all of this. He knows it. We know it.
Yet there were also reports that the employment rates in California are rising, if not a lot, then at least getting us back towards the national averages. I have trouble believing that, either. I expect the demographics will just continue to deteriorate and the state will crater financially this year or next. And Brown knows that, and has just gone into happy talk mode. That’s all the Democratic party is good for anymore, we’re already over the cliff, we’ve looked down already, and all we can do is wave and smile.
Official projections are a marvelous thing. I hear Argentina has whipped its budget problems too. Wanna buy my bridge?
Fred is da bomb.
Well, but here’s the thing, why doesn’t somebody (PJM, harumph) start an honest press operation? WSJ is often OK, IBD runs Ramirez and some testy editorials, but what we need is a general newspaper, short and sweet, and honest. What a concept!
–
In re the unemployment duration, whatever that chart shows, and it’s bad enough, it doesn’t begin to show those who take huge pay cuts just to be employed, or who jump in and out of temporary jobs and suffer as much or more than a single long unemployment, and what’s more can fall out of the unemployment system entirely, don’t even show on the statistics. Moi, for one. I doubt if I’ve shown as either employed or unemployed for more than about a quarter of the time, over the last thirty years. And unfortunately there has been a lot of uncounted unemployment, in recent years and also back in other recession periods.
Josh, it doesn’t matter what the real unemployment numbers are. It was proven to us 2 months ago. We all know how things are compared to 10 years ago, including the low info voters, but none of that matters. PJM could drop leaflets from the sky stating that we are facing disaster if we don’t become more responsible in our spending habits, but folks will shrug it off because the majority doesn’t want to hear about it. They will tell you that they don’t want to talk about politics.
It’s not (just) the facts, it’s the channel.
It’s not getting out the facts, it’s competing with AP, all the rotted-out MSM.
For that matter, it’s an opportunity to make money – doing real journalism!
Fox, for all the hubbub, has never been very conservative, nor very assertive, nor very good, frankly. I’m not thinking of a conservative news channel, just a neutral one. Present both sides, all sides – honestly, even the socialist sides. Obamacare with ACCURATE NUMBERS. Some might still go for it. Few sane people, but it’s a big country, and as a candidate should *try* for *every* voter, a news organ (in my view) should *try* for *every* consumer.
Josh, I am waiting for the day that someone will get through with the real truth. I had hoped that years ago Rush Limbaugh would make a difference. I’m sure that He has made a difference, and I agree that Fox has gone MSM lite, but it seems that there is no way to reach the low info folks. They are brainwashed to the point where one would have to shut down their cell phone frequencies and brainwash them to vote for common sense before you will restore there phone frequency. Can we come up with a way to pull that one off?
Is it a coincidence that the end of the Soviet union almost coincided with the era of socialistic American governments?
No.
The nomenklatura wanted to maintain control but have the revenue coming into state coffers that only markets can produce.
By the mid-80s the USSR was telling its 3rd world clients NOT to nationalize but to USE capitalism. Nationalizing destroyed the economy.
They want the revenue and control over people and natural resources. Hence the model we have.
And I actually have all sorts of documents laying out the transition. Apparently only the masses bought the idea that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. And the Communists said “Oh, never mind.”
I don’t know where to start;
I’ll do my own essay on this subject; With documentation, graphs, quotations, and examples.
WAAAAY too much for this comment section.
And I’m not the only one.
Note that Bloomberg news not not mentioned ,and rightfully so, as a reliable financial news outlet. They are slightly to the right of AP but still liberal. Reason: editor and chief is Al Hunt, rabid liberal from the old “Washington Gang” TV show.
Growth better than expected Updated: 2013-01-12 By Chen Jia in Beijing and Yu Ran in Shanghai (China Daily)
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-01/12/content_16107456.htm
Washington D.C. is our problem, mainly the democrat statist! They were the party of slavery, and they still are!