It’s All the Negative Media, Stupid…
Gosh, it took me a really long time to find a positive article about the economy. Finally, I unearthed one in the Wall Street Journal. It’s a few days old and the Fed has since dropped the federal funds rate another 50 basis points, but maybe it will make you feel the tiniest bit releaved to hear something positive for once.
When it comes to the economy, I am a firm believer that perception is reality. Beat someone over the head with a thought for long enough and they will start to believe it, positive or negative. What about positive affirmations? Remember Stuart Smalley? Why doesn’t the media try that stance for a few days? What could it hurt?
Only you can determine your comfort level with the economy and your financial situation. Is your job stable? Are you earning the same, more, or less, than you did last year? Are you still able to save? Do you really feel strapped, or is the media making you think about things too much? Take a deep breath, step back, and look at your situation. The sky might not be falling.
Now, I’m off to stimulate the economy with a latte purchase…
While I agree with the sentiment, I can’t trust the Wall Street Journal OpEd pages for anything. The news organization there is great, but the editorial section is a bunch of ideologically driven non-wonks.
Too many indicators are going off that say we’re headed to a recession… the big question is whether it’s big or small…
I don’t know, he seems pretty grounded to me… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Wesbury although it does point out that he is known as an optimist.
I actually think we are in a (small) recession right now. I believe the media is pushing us towards a large recession with all of the negative reports.
Perhaps…
I just think it depends on whether the amount of equity withdrawn from home values is significant. Some estimates have this at close to 8% of aggregate disposable income across the country. If that were to disappear… that’s a big number. (http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/01/advance-q4-mew-estimate.html).
It ultimately depends on whether examples like these were widespread.
This doesn’t even begin to consider the price of oil and other commodities, all of which are pricing higher, and the weakness of the dollar, which threatens our ability to do, well, everything.
I guess exports could make up for this, but there’s a suddenness to this, and we’re only beginning the corrective changes on the mortgage side of the world (Countrywide and Chase just tightened HELOC LTV requirements, for example).
Let’s just say I hope you’re right, but that I don’t think the media should hide these numbers or not talk about the volume of negative indicators that are going off.
Sujal
BTW, Wesbury writes for the American Spectator, too. He is appearing in the WSJ Op Ed section because of that connection as much as anything else. Hope he’s right, but it’s hard to accept the article without reviewing the statistics closely, which I don’t have time to do…