Get real.
This country runs on consumer confidence, which has so clearly been shown in the last few weeks. A few negative economic numbers were released, the presidential candidates jumped on them so they could cry “crisis” in order to get attention, news outlets cried “crisis” to boost their ratings, those led to a crisis of consumer confidence, which hurt the markets and caused an actual economic crisis.
It showed poor judgment and lack of responsibility for the presidential candidates to hype the negative news and cry “crisis”. Unfortunately, the news media did the usual and made a crisis where there wasn’t one. I’m not ignoring the housing problem, but the downturn in the markets and consumer confidence dropped precipitously due to the media, not due to the 2 negative numbers that were released.
As our corporate laws and markets have evolved into the current “public” form the role of consumer confidence in the economy has gained power to the point where it rules the economy. The president can no longer speak honestly during a State of the Union address or we’ll have a worldwide crash the following day. Instead, he is limited to challenging Congress while being as optimistic about the future as possible.
That’s reality.
