Posted by Tina
The media that shills for the President and his destructive economic policy isn’t blasting the administration for this massive loss in GDP, yet the near 3% loss represents the worst economic condition this nation has seen in decades! It’s significant that this terrible condition isn’t attracting the scorn for the President that was given George W. Bush when his policies produced positive growth at 4%. The media is engaging in propaganda to sway loyalties and votes.
It’s obvious the media regularly engages in Saul Alinsky’s Rule #12 to destroy Republicans and uplift Democrats in the eyes of the people. Is there a word that can adequately describe this blatant and willful propaganda campaign that media engages in on a regular basis? I don’t think so…I’ve tried to find the words. It isn’t that they simply get a few points in the story wrong now and then. It’s that they purposely endeavor to manipulate the attitudes and minds of the citizens.
Please don’t misunderstand. We citizens should be responsible to discover the truth ourselves. But let’s also be realistic. Most Americans are influenced greatly by soundbites. Propaganda campaigns work as people get on about the ups and downs of their lives. But we have to start getting the attention of our fellow citizens because this propaganda machine is destroying more than our economy. It’s destroying the very fabric of our nation. Hundreds of thousands of people choose to support candidates and policies based on false information and innuendo driven by a lying media that’s been at work for decades creating levels of dependency in the population, creating hatred and disdain toward certain groups of people, pushing manufactured crisis that is then blamed on certain industries and directing loyalties toward a party that deceptively sells itself as savior and protector while painting its competition as evil.
A US Economy at -2.9% screams massive failure of the President’s economic policies and the media yawns and makes excuses. “It’s the result of the weather,” they write. That has to be the ultimate dog ate my homework story. The truth is that under the current policy the rich are getting richer but the little guy is falling into poverty at alarming rates and being handed crumbs to keep his sense of outrage contained. And what is the Democrat Party doing next about this terrible depressive condition? They are selling the lie that Global Warming is now the biggest threat the American people face.
How about you…are you going to swallow this latest bit of propaganda while the value of your dollar shrinks and the prospects for a brighter future vanishes for your kids and grand kids? Are you going to stand by and allow the Democrat Party and their propaganda media to continue to ruin your life, your children’s lives, your jobs, your businesses, and your country? Are you going to prove to them you are as stupid and malleable as they think you are by giving them your support and loyalty?
Or are you going to take a risk and start digging to find the truth about the disastrous results of democrat policy…and then tell your family members and friends about it?
Our leftist buddies here at Post Scripts will laugh and tell me that I can’t attract voters to the conservative side by telling them that they have been stupid. I’m not so sure. Human beings are often best served by a kick in the pants…a sudden wake up call. Nobody wants to think they’ve been played like a violin and taken for granted. Nobody appreciates being conned and that is exactly what the Democrat Party and their media propaganda machine have been doing…they’ve been conning the American people for decades. It’s time the con was exposed and eradicated.
Hapless Republicans have given up and gone along to get along in the face of the overwhelming barriers erected to blunt their message and distort the positive result of conservative policy. New voices are emerging to break down the barriers and boldly deliver the message of positive solutions to our problems. Historical evidence under President of both parties reveal the truth behind the economic message. John F. Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s economic successes were a result of conservative economic policy. Similarly constructed policies will again uplift our nation and make it strong. I suggest we start paying attention and grab the responsibility from the jaws of the leftist propaganda machine before we drown in a sea of economic loss and failure.
From Forbes:
“The bad weather in much of the U.S. in early 2014 was a significant drag on the economy, disrupting production, construction, and shipments, and deterring home and auto sales,” wrote PNC Senior Economist Gus Faucher in a note out prior to the release. “But data show growth rebounding in the second quarter, with improvements in home and auto sales and residential construction.”
The major stock indices slipped into the red as the opening bell approached but quickly returned to positive territory. This seems to indicate that investors were also writing off the contraction as temporary.
In an interview following the release Stephen Auth, Chief Investment Officer at Federated Investors, called the revision “pretty incredible” but says that underlying trends have shown improvement that has simply been “masked” by the weather. He expects second quarter GDP growth to come in north of 4% and continual market gains.
***
Tina, the rest of us get out of the bubble from time to time. You need to do that too.
Big surprise Libby. Conservative Steve Forbes actually allows differing opinion to be published in his fine magazine! Unlike the propaganda machine he believes the people, given information, will ultimately make the right decisions.
The truth about the stock market is that the government has pumped big money into the system creating a false reality and only the big guys are investing.
Where the stock indices are on any given day has little to do with the negative GDP…NEGATIVE by nearly as much as an average GDP and nowhere near what could be described as a growg or even stable economy!
You have a journalist trying to put a favorable spin on an awful story…a story that should enrage the people but for the soft treatment afforded this president. and it isn’t just this story we’ve had many months, years, of sluggish conditions, a disappearing middle class and high levels of poverty.
No ecuses…the policies are not working. If 4% is miraculously achieved I’ll give you your due…as long as it isn’t later revised downward…another media trick used liberally to make this prez look better than he deserves.
The above at #2 was written by me, Tina.
When I log out of the edit page if I don’t close the front page before posting another comment my comment inadvertently identifies me as PS. Its a result of a function that allows a single editor to toggle back and forth without logging in and out. don’t have time to repost right now…sorry for the error.
“You have a journalist trying to put a favorable spin on an awful story ….”
No. Snow is snow, for weeks. Ice is ice, for weeks. The quotes are quotes, not spin. The stock market’s reaction is a fact, not spin.
Now, the guy who posits 4% in the second quarter could turn out to be wrong. But that article reports a lot of other facts supporting the “low, but steady” gain scenario.
You offer nothing, but your anguished opinion, for several paragraphs.
Hilarious. Here’s Huffington Post back on April 30th spinning that Obamacare “saved” the economy from diving into negative growth in the first quarter. That was before the numbers were “revised down” to reflect the reality of negative growth at 2.9%. In fact today we discover that too many sick people have bought into Obamacare and that’s only adding heft to the economic decline.
Jack Rasmus wrote the following before this final revision:
I’ll add that internet shopping was up over December from the previous year demonstrating that weather would not deter people from spending if they were inclined to spend. In fact, being cooped up because of weather could easily spark spending.
Business Insider:
Sorry Libby but “steady gain” is nothing more than a silly euphemism for a stinking economy.
The above is a lot more “something’ than your pathetic, liberal, apologetic dismissal of a five year long lousy economy for which there is NO valid excuse.
Our media should be slamming this administration and the Democrats that share these abysmal, help the rich but not the middle class, policies!
Libby, you live in a perpetual bubble. You must have been in it with the curtains pulled in 1985 when we had the worst winter in history and we had a growing economy under Reagan’s leadership.
When will you and Obama stop blaming his failures on everything except his bad decisions?
Winter 1985 cold wave: From Wikipedia
“The Winter 1985 cold wave[1] was a meteorological event, the result of the shifting of the polar vortex further south than is normally seen.[1] Blocked from its normal movement, polar air from the north pushed into nearly every section of the eastern half of the United States and Canada, shattering record lows in a number of areas.[1] The event was preceded by unusually warm weather in the eastern U.S. in December 1984, suggesting that there was a build-up of cold air that was suddenly released from the Arctic, a meteorological event known as a Mobile Polar High, a weather process identified by Professor Marcel Leroux.[2]
The Arctic air mass started moving into the United States on the evening of January 19 and the morning of January 20. An early victim of the air mass was the city of Chicago, which recorded a record low of −27 °F (−33 °C), coupled with 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) winds to produce a wind chill of −77 °F (−61 °C), also never recorded before. The wind chill calculation was adjusted in 2001, which would make the value about −60 °F (−51 °C) on the new scale.[3] St. Louis saw a low of −18 °F (−28 °C). Pittsburgh woke up that morning to find a low of −18 °F (−28 °C), the coldest morning since 1899.[4] In Cincinnati, the morning temperature of −21 °F (−29 °C) tied for the fourth-lowest minimum temperature in the city’s history, outdone by a cold mass the year before and a blizzard in 1977.[5] Cleveland fell to −18 °F (−28 °C), which was at the time a record.[6] Memphis recorded a low of −4 °F (−20 °C), setting a record low for that day. The coldest temperature in the contiguous states on Jan. 21 was −24 °F (−31 °C), in the unlikely location of Akron, Ohio.[7]
The mass moved east and south during the day on January 20, resulting in frigid air for most of the Eastern Seaboard starting on the morning of January 21. New York City’s Central Park recorded a low of −2 °F (−19 °C), breaking that date’s record.[8] Washington National Airport set a record of −4 °F (−20 °C) for the morning of January 21 and a record low for the prior date of −2 °F (−19 °C).[9] It was the Southern United States that felt the biggest brunt, unaccustomed as they are to the Northern states’ winter air. Roanoke, Virginia set a record low of −11 °F (−24 °C), and the campus of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Tennessee, recorded a record low of −24 °F (−31 °C).[1] Tennessee’s state capital, Nashville, dropped to −17 °F (−27 °C), while all-time records were set well into interior sections of the deep South, such as −5 °F (−21 °C) in Charlotte,[1] −6 °F (−21 °C) in Macon, Georgia,[1] 7 °F (−14 °C) in Jacksonville, Florida,[1] and 10 °F (−12 °C) in Gainesville, Florida[10] (coldest since 6 °F (−14 °C) in 1899). Atlanta saw a low of −8 °F (−22 °C), setting a record for the month of January and for the 20th century, missing by just one degree the all-time record (since 1879) set in February 1899.[11] Even Miami, whose average low in late January is 60 °F (16 °C), recorded a low of 34 °F (1 °C) on the 21st and 30 °F (−1 °C) on the 22nd, both record lows for the date, the latter being one of only 10 times the city has been that cold since 1895.[12][13]
Ferocious cold in February 1985 set two more state record lows in the Mountain West. Utah’s −69 °F (−56 °C) was the second-coldest temperature ever recorded in the “lower 48” states, just above Montana’s record of −70 °F (−57 °C) in 1954. Colorado’s −61 °F (−52 °C) broke the old record of −60 °F (−51 °C), also on February 1.
Impact and aftermath[edit]
The cold wave brought human fatalities, deaths of wild and domesticated animals, crop losses, and infrastructure damage to homes, municipality and industrial sites. At least 126 deaths were blamed on the cold snap.[14] Some 90 percent of the citrus crop in Florida was destroyed in what the state called the “Freeze of the Century.”[15] Florida’s citrus industry suffered $1.2 billion in losses ($2.3 billion in 2009 dollars) as a result of the inclement weather, which killed nearly every citrus tree in central Florida, and forced the industry permanently into southern Florida.[16] The public inauguration of President Ronald Reagan for his second term was held in the Capitol Rotunda instead of outside due to the cold weather, canceling the inaugural parade in the process. (Because Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday, Reagan took a private oath on January 20 and the semi-public oath on January 21.)[17]
U.S. state record lows set in 1985[edit]
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0113527.html
Colorado: −61 °F (−52 °C) Feb 1
North Carolina: −34 °F (−37 °C) Jan 21 atop Mount Mitchell
South Carolina: −19 °F (−28 °C) Jan 21
Utah: −69 °F (−56 °C) Feb 1
Virginia: −30 °F (−34 °C) Jan 22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1985_Arctic_outbreak
Sorry for copying so much of the article, but it was just too good to leave in the off chance you wouldn’t bother clicking on the link yourself.
And guess who was president during that horrible record breaking winter and still managed to bring our economy out of the worst recession since the Great Depression? Yup, Libby it was Ronald Reagan.
So, please stop making excuses for this failure of a president. He didn’t know what he was doing before he was elected and he sure hasn’t learned anything since. Therefore, he will succeed in transforming America from the once great nation it was to put it on the same level as third-world countries.
We desperately needed another Reagan, but instead we got another Carter.
“The 1980s are commonly referred to as the decade of excess, but it took getting over a left over recession from the 70s economy that extended into the early 80s, and included both an oil and energy crisis.
As usual, politics played a major role in the recovery and growth of the 1980s economy.
People were unhappy with a number of federal policies that contributed to a rough start to the 80s economy.
Interest rates and inflation were out of control, with the highest prime seen at 21.5 percent and agriculture was suffering while exports and crop prices fell drastically.
In 1981, the people took their frustration to the polls and elected Ronald Reagan as their president.
The government was still spending too much and the people were spending too little, keeping the country in a recession through 1982.
On July 29, 1981, the U.S. Congress passed Reagans proposal to cut taxes by $750 billion over the next five years. Reagans theory was to end the recession by allowing people to keep more of the money they earned, thereby spending and investing more.
Most of the tax cuts ended up benefitting the wealthy, but in theory, it would encourage investing and create new jobs with higher pay for lower economic classes. Reagan also increased taxes for large corporations to bring in some revenue.
President Reagan also cut government spending, controversially cutting many social and domestic programs, while also lifting regulations the government imposed on businesses, the workplace, and the environment. Government spending focused strongly on defense with the Vietnam War still fresh in the mind of the entire country.
Once the recession ended and taxes were lower, things got a little easier. Inflation and interest rates came down while wages went up. Another good sign in the 1980s economy was between 1982 and 1987, when there were more than 13 million new jobs created.
The federal budget deficit grew from $74,000 million in 1980 to $221,000 million in 1986 because of government spending and borrowing, but in order to control prices, the Federal Reserve would raise rates if it looked like things were getting out of control again.
The average salary in 1980 was around $17,000. By 1989, the average household income increased to $28,000. This was because of the increase in jobs and wages in general and partly due to many women returning to the workforce.
Mortgage rates that had been as high as 15 percent and up started to come down slowly; by 1989, the average rate was around 9 percent, allowing people to save even more.
With the falling interest rates, fewer taxes to pay, and higher paychecks, people felt a lot more comfortable spending a little more.
People were spending on everyday necessities like homes, cars, clothes, and utilities, but now they upgraded – bigger homes, cooler cars, and designer clothes.
They could also afford all the fun extras such as computers, video game consoles and games, cell phones, and enjoyed every minute of their newly discovered financial freedom, thanks to the recovering, and growing, 1980s economy.”
http://www.classic80s.com/1980s-economy.html
Tina’s article was good, your comments were the anguished opinions loaded with the usual spin. Get real or stop voting.
“Our media should be slamming this administration ….”
Well, I’m sure you’d like it if they did, but that’s not what journalists do. Journalists report facts. And it is a fact that it was very difficult to do business during the rough winter. It is also a fact that it is no longer the first quarter, That ended three month ago. Unemployment is still falling, the stock market is still rising … the contraction was, seemingly, temporary. You’re just going to have to face it.
Nobody is going tell you the sky is falling, just because you want them to. And why would you want it to?
Libby journalists that daily characterized the Bush economy as really bad when the GDP was regularly averaging at least 4% growth, we had normal unemployment levels, and our debt, though excessive, was in line with average debt to GDP levels of other presidents and then excuses this Obama economy is not engaged in “report facts”.
You know that. You participated in the bashing as did many republicans I’m sorry to say.
I will face it when the American people are back to work and earning again.
Will you face the fact that the presidents policies are a failure…never! You do not care. You are a true believer.
The latest Fed induced bubble is starting to deflate. And this time around the results are likely to be catastrophic.
There is unprecedented debt that is continually growing. The average standard of living in this country has been dropping for decades. Only debt has kept it from completely collapsing and that cannot last.
We are in the greatest debt bubble the world has ever known.
When this unprecedented debt bubble finally collapses it will reap a whirlwind nothing like the world has ever seen: The greatest financial collapse in world history.
What will be faced will be a terrible nightmare.
The world will be an agonizing place for most. The living will envy the dead. For most of the masses suicide will be the only answer as most of them will be better off dead. A bullet to the head will be their best friend. Truly terrifying times await.
Blame The Victim Libby slips in her own defecation again. This would be amusing if it were not so sad.
Geez Bob, that outlook of yours is kinda bleak.
Everything you post is negative…have you every posted ANYTHING positive? Why do you bother to get out of bed in the morning???
It’s not particularly fun to be the bearer of bleak forecasts; it’s incredibly frustrating to have tried to warn people in the 08 election that this would be the result if we elected Barack Obama….and devastating that by the 12 election Americans had still not realized the error.
John Hinderacker quotes Senator Jeff Sessions and offers a few suggestions for improvement:
Tina: “Libby journalists that daily characterized the Bush economy as really bad ….”
Prove this. It’s not how I remember it. There were regular prognostications that the bubble would eventually burst (but nobody would listen) … and until it did, all was going swimmingly, economically.
Now, over the war, he was thrashed, daily, and he deserved it.
And what’s any of this got to do with your insistence that the media reflect the world according to some wistful fantasy of yours, rather than as it is?
Bob: “There is unprecedented debt that is continually growing.”
Bob, you cannot go to Glenn for news. You go to Glenn for propaganda.
You want economic news, Bloomberg is better. Glenn is nothing but a “button pusher” for profit. Bloomberg provides news to business types, who need to know what’s really going on and wouldn’t keep Bloomberg in business, if they didn’t get what they need.
The CBO projection for a steep decline in the 2014 deficit depends on a projected 9% increase in revenue for the year. We’re up 8%. We’ll get close to 9 before end of the year. And if the DECLINE in the federal deficit is not quite as steep, it’s still a DECLINE.
Glenn lies to you. He pushes your buttons, because he knows he can. Don’t let him … it’s not healthy.
Libby you are amazing. A liberal press judging Bush’s better economy in negative terms means that liberals are right about conservative economic policy is harmful and at the same time liberal media talking up a miserable economy over nearly six years under Obama means liberal economic policy is better.
Vanity Fair, 2007:
What is left out of this article are the many times the President called on Congress to do something about the housing situation and Charlie Rangle poo pooing the President to block reform. The article also slams the Bush tax policy as favoring the rich which is a lie. The Presidents tax policy gave tax rate cuts across the board and raised the tax exemption for dependents. It’s absurd to say his policy “favored” the rich. The higher gas price under Bush was temporary, unlike the price of gas under Obama during his entire presidency. And Bush was a piker in terms of debt plus before Nancy Pelosi took the purse strings in 2006 Republicans in the House had begun to bring the debt down.
More negative blather at American Progress – 2006.
The Washington Postwrote of the Bush economy in 2009
Here’s more:
The media and the President today are pushing policy to increase “consumer spending, the very thing they lamented was one of the contributors to what they inferred was a terrible economy even as they cited “expansion”
Contrast that with the excuses and propping up being done with a much worse economy, a failure to come out of recession, record long high unemployment, miniscule to negative growth, large numbers of Americans falling into poverty.
Bloomberg:
MSNBC:
ABC:
Bush was hammered a lot on debt…Obama has not and it’s much worse. Plus the Democrats had that super majority and did nothing about the debt they thought was just terrible…instead they added a huge entitlement that will add to the debt year after year!
Sorry Libby. It isn’t that there wasn’t room to criticize under Bush. We at Post Scripts criticized on spending and debt. It’s is that the media colors reporting with the intent of harming Republicans and uplifting Democrats and its done often enough to be a big propaganda problem.
Wish I had more time but have a lot going on and I have to go. Maybe someone else would like to weigh in? If not, ah’ll be bock!
Libby the only thing a decline in the deficit means is that the government (thanks to Republicans taking the House) is not spending as much.
The debt is another matter. The Weekly Standard reports that over the last two years the debt rose twice as much as the GDP:
Maybe you believe everything is going swimmingly simply because you are being fed a soft message over there on Bloomberg.
I don’t think the economic numbers have ever been revised so often (mostly to the negative)! It could be that Bloomberg skips the negative revisions.
Federal revenue is at all time highs but that’s a signal that government is EXPENSIVE and thriving at the expense of the unemployed and those impoverished and suffering under a stagnant economy. In other words under Democrats government gets rich, along with the rich, but the average American gets screwed.
And since you are a big government gal you applaud!
While government employees are making out just swell, and the President plays golf and goes on family holidays, the regular folks are suffering under extremely high gas and food prices, high and rising tuition costs, few choices in the job market for young people with those 18 to 30 living at home and the disposable income shrinking under higher healthcare and healthcare insurance costs. In their businesses they are experiencing more regulatory costs, higher energy and shipping costs, higher rents and in some cases rising minimum wages and related costs.
yeah…you can pretend government under Democrats looks out for the people but all you do is throw crumbs to those who aren’t making it because there is not enough opportunity!
Perhaps the worm has turned. A new poll rates the President as the worst since WWII beating out even Jimmy Carter and George Bush.
Better than the poll is an observation by Richard Fernandez of PJ Media:
There are indications that people are catching on to media bias and demanding and better. If they fail to rise to the challenge others will simply take their places.
Great article.
Charles Krauthammer, with his usual wisdom, explains why Obama is seen as the worst pres. since WWII and why a fence on our border would work.
Krauthammer: Reagan Never Controlled House, Got Things Passed; What’s Obama’s Excuse?:
“Charles Krauthammer went after President Obama today for campaigning in lieu of governing. He said that the president can’t keep complaining about the House blocking him, because the GOP never held the House under Ronald Reagan and he got things done.
Krauthammer said campaigning could be Obama’s “only great competence,” but that all the president really does is talk a lot about big issues without actually doing anything. He charged that Obama “doesn’t know how to govern,” because the president isn’t happy about the House not helping him with his agenda but an “essential element of governing is working with the other party.”
And Krauthammer brought up a Republican icon as an example.
“Reagan never had control of the House. It was always in Democratic hands. He passed enormously important legislation… And all Obama can do is whine about how it’s the other guys who are in charge of Congress.”
Obama, of course, has been campaigning all over the country, railing against Republican obstructionism and dismissing concerns over his executive actions.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-reagan-never-controlled-house-got-things-passed-whats-obamas-excuse/
Krauthammer: “If Fences Don’t Work, Why Is There One Around The White House?”:
“CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Alright, here’s what I’ve been on for years. You start with a fence. It’s very simple. People say, ‘Oh, fences don’t work. You make a ladder.’ Well, then you build two fences, triple strand fences. San Diego did that in the mid 90’s and within a decade, the illegal immigration rate at that point was reduced by 90% and people ended up going through other places like Arizona.
If fences don’t work, why is there one around the White House? If they don’t work, why is it that the Israeli fence which separate Israel from the West Bank has cut down terror attacks within Israel by 99%. Fences work. Yes, there are parts of the border where you can’t have a fence, fine. So you don’t have it in those areas and you do heavy patrols. But there is no reason why a rich country like us cannot put a fence across — a double fence, a triple fence and patrol it all the time. That would have a tremendous impact.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/07/01/krauthammer_if_fences_dont_work_why_is_there_one_around_the_white_house.html