Just Ask Ben Stein
8 Mar
While reading about the Cardinal’s dispatching of West Virginia and claiming the Big East regular season crown this morning, I over heard Charles Osgood, host of “Sunday Morning” begin to talk about consumer confidence, the doom and gloom being reported, and introduced none other than Ben Stein, actor and economist for his opinion on the doom and gloom and I was absolutely thrilled that mainstream is starting to “get it.”
It’s as if someone were reading our words here. He said, and I can’t quote but this gist of it was that 92% of us are still employed, 94% of mortgages are still being paid on time, and we have the money to spend, but we’re putting it in the bank. Why? Because of what we’re reading, listening too, and seeing.
He said that economic health is determined by “M” (supply of money) and “V” (velocity at which it moves, exchanges hands or “gets spent). He gave Bernanke credit for keeping “M” pumped up and chided media for slowing down “V”. He went on to say that if Barack Obama, his top advisors, Warren Buffett, and a few others went on the air and positively said we would be out of this recession by year’s end, that we certainly would be out of it by year’s end.
I was very excited to see this start to get some play. And tomorrow at 1:20 central time I’ll be a guest on WCCO radio, Minneapolis, MN to talk about this topic…
So don’t listen to us, take it from Ben Stein. The media has a role in how quickly we recover from this recession. They can report the news, both sides without all the extreme adjectification of economic conditions or they can continue the type of reportint that’s adding fuel to the recessionary fire. Hopefully stories like this will continue to expand the ring of positive economic news reporting.
Tags: economic news reporting, positive economic news reporting, positive news
Well, put Mr Stein
Even though there are serious problems in banking and wages are screwed fear is the driving force right now, fueled by the media. All the bickering by the republicans and democrats as well as economists is not helping either. I for one am tired of looking to others to feel good. I have to look inside and make a spread sheet of what I have and dont have and make plans for me.
I just listened to the podcast at WCCO radio, congrats! I’m also impressed that the governor was on the same show. This is an important topic and needs to be discussed much more.
http://www.830wcco.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=3559483
I usually don?t post in Blogs but your blog forced me to, amazing work.. beautiful ?
Believe you have to consider all aspects in the current economic climate – personally do no think we have seen the full extent of the recesssion, so would be cautious in considering.
Certainly this is a time for caution. It’s also not a time for panic…I’ve been saying this since this recession ever became a recession. If we look at history we see that we’ve come back from far worse. This is a time for hard work, innovating thinking, and spending less time on Facebook.