The campaign-obsessed press never saw Wall Street's calamity coming
On Monday afternoon, September 15, my new issue of Newsweek arrived in the mail just as the fear on Wall Street began to morph into unbridled panic. By then, investment powerhouses Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch had been wiped out, while insurance giant AIG teetered on the brink.
Flipping open Newsweek, I knew the magazine had gone to print over the weekend and wouldn't have the most up-to-date information on the financial calamity that erupted Sunday and spilled over into Monday. But I was curious about what kind of financial coverage the magazine offered up since, during the previous news week cycle, the government had stepped in and made the unprecedented move of bailing out troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was no secret, as Newsweek editors put their latest issue to bed, that the credit and mortgage crisis was gaining strength and that there was something seriously wrong with America's financial markets. Yet as I looked through that entire issue of Newsweek, I found only one page dedicated to financial news.
Just one page.
Curious, I counted how many Newsweek pages in that same edition were set aside for campaign-related coverage.
Answer: 16.
The arrival of Black September on Wall Street focused an unwanted spotlight on the cracks in the United States economy, not to mention free market capitalism. In terms of journalism, Black September also highlighted deep deficiencies. Namely, how the mainstream media went AWOL for much of 2008 in covering the U.S. economy and the state of the financial markets.
Blinded by its obsession with the presidential campaign (an obsession that has too often revolved around tactics and trivia), the press this summer all but ignored the unfolding financial story at a time when the public announced, week after week, that it was starved for more economic reporting and that the economy was, without question and perhaps without precedent, the single most pressing issue for the presidential campaign.
But that didn't matter. Because prior to September 15, the press couldn't be bothered. The press had its Story of the Year, thank you very much, and it wasn't going to budge off it, not even a little.
Preoccupied with covering a presidential campaign that reporters and pundits deemed to be fun and entertaining, the press, for much of the year, walked away from its responsibility to inform the public about an array of different topics simultaneously. Instead, the press, and especially television news, pretty much announced that it could only (or would only) cover one big story at a time (the campaign), unless a hurricane arrived, and then it would cover two.
"Rather than focus, in those [preceding] days and weeks, on the incidents that led to today's [stock] plunge, general-interest news outlets focused fairly myopically on ... the presidential campaign," noted Megan Garber at CJR.org.
And that wasn't just a hunch. It was a fact. Here's what the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded last month after undertaking an extensive study of the media's handling of economic news: "While the public considers the economy its No. 1 concern, for instance, the media have been far more interested in the presidential campaign -- by a factor of nearly 5-to-1 between January 2007 and June 2008."
Talk about a disconnect.
"This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," a New York University professor told The Wall Street Journal last week. The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the national press missed the story. (The more niche business press, obviously, gave the story much greater coverage in recent months. My beef is with the more general press corps' handling of the story.)
And again, this wasn't a case of where the press should have provided a community service by rigorously covering a staid, boring topic and forced news consumers to eat their vegetables. In fact, it was the opposite. It was news consumers who wanted to be informed, and it was the press that balked at covering serious stuff. It was the press that refused to pay attention to what voters routinely announced was the most important story of the election season.
A recent New York Times/CBS News poll, taken before the Black September clouds exploded over Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, asked voters which issue represented their top concern during the presidential campaign, and 48 percent answered the economy and jobs. Ten percent chose gas and energy policy, and an additional 10 percent selected the cost of health care. I'd suggest all three of those could fall under the umbrella of economic concerns, which meant that for a staggering 78 percent of voters, this campaign was about pocketbook issues.
But you'd never know that from the mindless political news coverage by the media, which for weeks gorged themselves on campaign minutiae, trivia, and concocted storylines.
Even the shocking financial news last week couldn't radically alter the media's focus.
For instance, late on Friday, after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the mind-bending bailout of hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt, a deal he pitched to congressional leaders by explaining behind closed doors that if the deal wasn't put together, the U.S. economy would soon stop functioning, I clicked on Time's website to see which stories the venerable news organization had tagged as the most important at that moment. These were the main headlines being promoted by Time.com and the headlines that appeared at the top of the site's homepage:
"Virginia Sounds the Starting Gun for Early Voting"
"Maxed-Out Moms: The Battleground Voting Bloc"
"A Brief History of Political Campaign Songs"
"Todd Palin (Among Others) a No-Show at Troopergate Hearing"
"Palin and Troopergate: A Primer"
Talk about being pot-committed. The White House campaign remains the story the press is dedicated to over-reporting (the beast must be fed!), and nothing is going to change that. I'm pretty sure that if the Mexican army marched across the Texas border, by week's end, Time would be back to promoting campaign updates at the top of its website.
Aside from the media's addiction to easy-to-produce campaign updates, I'd suggest there are at least three other reasons the press backed off the Wall Street story for so long. One, as Gary Shilling, president of a New Jersey investment firm, told a local newspaper columnist last week, was that the press has spent too many years being a "cheerleader" for the economy instead of a detached skeptic, and when Wall Street went into denial about the bursting credit bubble within the past year, too often the media followed.
There's little doubt that within the past decade or two, the news media's relationship with corporate business, and specifically Wall Street, has changed dramatically. Instead of the press, as Shilling noted, serving as an independent counterbalance on big business and a skeptic when needed, the press seemed to fall in love with business and Wall Street in particular. The press became enraptured by the riches the firms produced and celebrated their success with glee. (For pure idol worship, read Vanity Fair's 2006 "Greenwich's Outrageous Fortunes," a 7,500-word toast to a new breed of hedge fund kings and the Connecticut palaces they were constructing.)
Wall Street's runaway wealth in recent years seemed to present a particular appeal for the elite media circles of Manhattan. For people making booming six-figure and even low seven-figure salaries in the news business, the scent of unadulterated luxury that drifted up the island of Manhattan from Wall Street became increasingly intoxicating. As the two stratified social circles seemed to intertwine more and more, it became increasingly obvious, via news coverage, that Wall Street bankers were seen by the press -- were often celebrated by the press -- as dazzling cultural heroes and the men who made New York City truly dynamic and modern.
That tangled relationship (i.e. the media's crush on Wall Street) propped up the second big problem: The press has been worshiping Wall Street big hitters for so long, I'm not sure the media remember how to throw the necessary darts at money barons any more.
For instance, prior to Black September, one of the only detailed articles Newsweek published about Wall Street in the previous month was a profile of a prominent banker in the August 11 issue. The piece essentially read like a celebrity sketch, as readers learned about the banker's palatial Fifth Avenue home, where the banker "hosts the beau monde of Manhattan"; "a grand salon" where media and entertainment executives gathered "for evenings of high living, highbrow discourse, high finance -- and the high art of exercising influence."
Indeed, the banker's life "already seems a charmed one," Newsweek gushed.
The problem was that the magazine had its nose pressed so tightly up against the Fifth Avenue glass windows -- it was so busy checking out the swells inside -- that the news outlet forgot to include, in the article about Wall Street, any salient information regarding the health of Wall Street.
My third hunch is that the general press backed off aggressively covering Wall Street and the unfolding credit crisis in 2007 and 2008 because it would have meant raising all sorts of uncomfortable questions about greed, criminality, idiocy, and the nature of capitalism. And for a press corps already taunted and attacked for having a liberal bias, those represented difficult issues to discuss. So, for the most part, they were not.
None of that, though, excuses the fact that for most of this year, news consumers were clamoring for updates about the economy and the press couldn't have cared less.
Admittedly, there were times in August, particularly during the Olympic Games, when the public's interest in the economy waned, and also when Hurricanes Gustav and Ike came ashore in early September. But for months leading up to the Wall Street collapse, there were clear signs that Americans were starved for news about the economy, news that the press simply refused to provide because it just wasn't a story the press wanted to chew on, to chatter about, and to pontificate over. (It wasn't fun like the campaign.)
For instance, for the week of August 4-10, 26 percent of the public said the economy was the story they were following most closely, making it the most important news story of the cycle. But the press set aside just 3 percent of coverage for that story during that seven-day span.
In fact, if you average together the weeks between June and mid-September, 23 percent of the public told the Pew Research Center that the economy and related issues (i.e. housing, gas prices, etc.) were the news stories they followed most closely. Almost one in four said no other story was more important to them.
What percentage of the news hole did those economic stories take up between June and mid-September? Five percent. I don't think the press could be more out of step with news consumers if they tried.
During that same period, what percentage of the news hole was taken up by campaign coverage? A whopping 31 percent, which meant the press devoted blockbuster coverage to the campaign every single week. (Quick: Between June 15 and August 15, can you remember a single campaign news story that demanded roadblock coverage from the press? Neither can I.)
Poll after poll this summer indicated voters were focused like a laser on the economy. The press? Not so much. During the Monday-to-Friday week of September 8-12, the only reason a single issue related to the economy even made it into the top 10 stories covered that week by the network newscasts was because the CBS Evening News ran a special segment on John McCain's and Barack Obama's positions on taxes and other fiscal policies. And that was the same week Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went broke.
That CBS fiscal report ran a total of seven minutes. By contrast, that week, the three network newscasts devoted a total of 77 minutes to covering Sarah Palin and the pending arrival of Hurricane Ike, according to the weekly tabulation at the Tyndall Report.
Indeed, the disparity in coverage has often been beyond staggering. Here's one concrete example. For the week of June 23-29, 51 percent of the public said they followed stories related to the economy the most closely. But the media only devoted 12 percent of their coverage to those stories that week.
Or consider that for the week of September 1-7, network news devoted 63 percent of its on-air time to the presidential campaign and just 1 percent to the economy. On cable TV, it was even more lopsided; 73 percent for the campaign and 1 percent for the economy.
That wasn't even the worst of it. For the previous week, August 25-31, network news set aside 79 percent of its time and energy to covering the campaign. For cable TV, it was an almost-impossible-to-fathom 94 percent. Obviously, there was no time to cover the economy that week.
Yet despite the tsunami of political coverage, 13 percent of Americans that last week in August still insisted that the economy was the news story they were following most closely.
Although, honestly, they must have used a microscope to find any actual news coverage.
With the press being dominated by repugs its easy to see why the last 8 years were ignored or glossed over. Repugs have given America nothing in the last 8 years except disaster and even now the repug press refuses to call it like it is.
who did see this disaster coming and predicted it years ago, was paul krugman. he said housing was way overvalued, many people were getting loans they could not afford, and a lot of the loans would be defaulted on. and now he is absolutely opposed to the blank check the bush administration wants. he points out that in that other financial debacle, of the reagan years, the government took over the assets of the savings and loans and sold them off to recover losses, even if it was not a complete recovery of money.
this bush plan is just hand us a blank check, no strings attached, and we will decide. no limits on executive salaries or golden parachutes, no transfer of assets to the taxpayer, and we have to do it today, can't wait. we can't wait forever, but a handover of maybe a trillion dollars is not something to be done without some assurances that we are not repeating the mistakes that got us here. especially with an administration that has "inept" as it's middle name.
I don't know, maybe the answer is found in being more selective about the media you read... I mean, Newsweek? In the age of the Internet Wire (the People's News Wire), shouldn't Newsweek change it's name to WeekOldNews?
As far as the extraordinary losses suffered by the many investment funds and companies on WALL STREET (all caused by the greed and gambling impatience of the various dumb kids who manage those funds), there's better more insightful more timely reporting and commentary on the matter, found easily on the Internet Wire, than you'll ever find in reading last week's news in Newsweek (WeekOldNews).
For example: way back in the beginning of June (more than three months ago), you could have been reading on the Internet Wire an article titled "Casinos On Wall Street" (instead of staring at the glossy pages of Newsweek)... from "Casinos On Wall Street", written and appearing on the Internet Wire back on June 10 2008, we have [slightly abridged here]:
Move over Las Vegas. The big time gamblers are on Wall Street and they are gambling with your money, your pensions, and your livelihoods.
Because Washington, D.C. has increasingly become corporate-occupied territory, the Wall Street Boys have been taking even greater risks with your money. The more they produce cycles of financial failure, the more they pay themselves through their rubberstamp boards of directors.Unlike Las Vegas casinos, these big investment banks, commercial banks and stock brokerage houses are supposed ...to be trustees for the money you have given them to safeguard, and tell you when they are making risky investments.
With each cycle of failure, the burden of government bailouts grows larger, meaning debt, deficit and your tax dollars. The Savings and Loan collapse in the late Eighties—costing before the bailout instruments are paid off at least $500 billion, looks small by comparison with what is going on today.
... The Wall Street Boys, like all charlatans, develop words and phrases to dress up their megagambling practices. They say they are trying to avoid a “crisis of confidence” when these proclaimed capitalists go to Uncle Sam for a socialistic bailout. That only increases the “moral hazard”—another euphemism—and sets the stage for another round of reckless Wall Street Goliaths being deemed “too big to fail”.
There's a lot more, I won't paste it all here, but you get the idea: on the Internet Wire, you could have been reading as far back as three months ago, about "big time gamblers on Wall Street" and about "big investment banks, commercial banks and stock brokerage houses making risky investments" and about how "Washington, D.C. has increasingly become corporate-occupied territory, the Wall Street Boys have been taking even greater risks with your money" and the other things you'll find in the article "Casinos On Wall Street" on the the Internet Wire, instead of staring strangely at the glossy pages of Newsweek (and what did that mag cost you, and are you happy with your purchase?) Read the rest of "Casinos On Wall Street", written and posted on the Internet Wire back on June 10 2008 (more than three months ago) by Ralph Nader at his website The Nader Page, at Nader.org... http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/1317-Casinos-on-Wall-Street.html Like I said, maybe the answer is found in being more selective about the media you read... I mean, Newsweek?
The First National Bank of the Mattress doesn't look so bad right now.
Who can afford a matttress?
Who is this 'Ralph Nader' of whom you speak? Just kidding. I recall seeing a remarkably instructive interview of Mr. Nader this summer on C-SPAN in which the interviewer, Steve Scully, was genuinely and openly aghast at hearing Mr. Nader's common-sense criticism of Corporate America, at one point even weakly advancing an embarrassingly simplistic (but very dogmatic) non sequitor -- such as, "But doesn't Corporate America create jobs?" Or, "Are you saying it is wrong to make money?" Or ""What do you have against profits?" Or "Don't you have to raise money to run your campaign?" Case closed. As if any criticism of any aspect of Corporate America was tantamount to a rejection of capitalism! And his tone was so condescending. Did he have any idea -- any clue whatsoever -- to whom he was speaking? And the complacent security in which he demonstrated his ignorance was just chilling, not to mention more than a little depressing.
What! Give readers, listeners or viewers a vital heads-up on the approaching
Wall Street earthquake? Warn them what could happen soon to their paychecks or investments? That would involve too much work for news gatherers, especially in cable news.
Hence the endless "he said, she said" nonsense interrupted only (as Eric Boehlert notes) by hurricane coverage, which does require work.
When 24/7 television news signed on three decades ago, veterans in the news business (myself included) envisioned long-due attention to detail. So
what routinely fills all that extra time? Mindless speculation such as to what a political candidate means by a
cliche, "putting lipstick on a pig." Almost incredibly, in early September 2008,
that triviality became virtually the ONLY story on cable TV news. This when seismic vibrations rumbled along Wall Street. How arrogant and cynical to insist viewers don't crave economic news, especially when surveys show that's what they want most.
-- Jerry Elsea
The economy only really became the topic of discussion when people started to notice the growing number of corporate welfare mothers lined up outside the government office in the Hamptons to pick up their checks...
I think the economy is such a all-encompassing and important issue right now that even the next missing white woman/baby/bride could not overshadow it.
Except maybe for Nancy DisGrace and Fox News.
I have to think that anti-Wall street reporting isn't in the cards for America. There is just too much relational interaction with the media companies and profit for them to "blame" Wall Street for anything other than hoisting another $1000 bottle of champagne. Money placates and immobilizes all.
I think you'll start seeing more economy-related stories in the press as the situation gets worse and the reporters and editors start facing foreclosures of their own......
Anybody else see the clip I caught early this am on Fox? McCain is taking questions from audience members, and there's an off camera voice that sounds amazingly like George Costanza's mother. She first thanks McCain for Sarah Palin, then starts screeching about the media, insisting that they should leave little children and their pregnancies alone, and fly in a team of 30 investigators to Chicago to check on Bill Ayers.
Just a reminder that there are Americans out there disgusted with the media for mentioning one bit of trivia, while insisting they go focus on some other nonsense.
You have to give the republican trolls credit--they know their talking points.
When I noticed the Stock market index funds diving precipitously for the summer months., I wondered at the panic that would ensue if George Bush's Social security private funds were in force. No one in the press wondered too much. I wonder how they invest allo their ill gotten gains.
With the bailout of Wall St. this administration is again using the tactics of FEAR. You must give $700 billion RIGHT NOW for ONE MAN to control, or our entire economy will collapse, they say.
How can anyone believe them?
By the way, what's happening in Iraq? A few hundred billion would come in handy right now. Too bad its been wasted on war profiteers.
George 1 is a major stockholder of the arms industry. War is very profitable for the Bush family.
I heard that clip. She calls out, "Shame on all ya!" And I believe I have heard that line somewhere before -- perhaps in a well-known film, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or Meet John Doe, or All the King's Men? In particular, I distinctly recall the "ya" at the end of her cry. I would be curious to know if anyone else found that line familiar ... and I have to wonder if she was a GOP plant.
Unfettered, laissez-faire, trickle-down capitalism just needs a little more time, a few more tax cuts for the wealthy, and several hundred billion dollars of your money to work its magic and make us all prosperous. Just hang in there a little longer, folks! We're almost there!
Baghdad year zero, anyone?
Hi Mary, since Foghorn, Pete and you all seem to be in the neighborhood of that theme, I'll mention that I finally bought Shock Doctrine yesterday, and have just started on it.I think you were discussing it with Roundhouse recently, if I'm confused, disregard this.
BTW, my procrastinating only pays off in two areas that I can think of, electronics( which get cheaper and better) and books (which come out in paperback).
I need to get on board myself. I read Naomi's essay "Baghdad Year Zero" and have actually recommended the Shock Doctrine based on reviews and her interviews about the book. But confess I've not read it as yet. I go to our local library and get most books...hoping after the Bush doctrine, there will still be some libraries!
For Bush and them, its Transferrable Cliches ! "we can see the light at the end of the tunnel", "we're about to turn the corner", "we must stay the course, or all that sacrifice (by those poor oppressed CEOs) will be wasted", "the recession is in its last throes", and. last but certainly not least, "the surge is working".
Reminds me of, oh yeah, "In the long run we're all dead."
Maybe someone should ask CNBC's Larry Kudlow why, if capitalism (as it has been practiced in the U.S. in recent years) is so manifestly superior, does he feel that it needs daily chearleading from him?
So the sorta newish Fox business channel isn't filling the need somehow?
Reliable Sources on CNN had a good segment about this over the weekend. Financial reporting from the mainstream news outlets has become a joke, as evidenced by the number of reporters using words like "tsunami" and "financial hurricane" to describe the current crisis. Even with a topic as serious and far-reaching as the economy, they still have to find a way to dumb it down, package it for tv, and send it out to Joe Six-Pack. Has any news outlet reported yet that McCain was dead wrong about firing the SEC commissioner? Boehlert is so correct that news outlets are basically nutured for fear of being painted as too liberal. As Colbert pointed out on the Daily Show a few years ago, the truth has a liberal bias!
Anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal, The Motley Fool, Business Investors Daily, and the Financail Times was well aware of the looming Wall Street Crisis. It was not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN. While I do agree with Mr. Bollerts observations on the lack of MSM reporting, I find his suppositions as to why rather reaching. With todays internet and news sources anyone who is interested enough in finding economic news can easily find it.
My apologies to Mr Boehlert for mangling the spelling of his name
Anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal, The Motley Fool, Business Investors Daily, and the Financail Times was well aware of the looming Wall Street Crisis.
And anyone who relies on regular broadcast news for their information is losing out. "The News" being shown on TV today is a far cry from "The News" presented by Huntley-Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, and Howard K. Smith 40 years ago. Back then, you got stories, backup information, and facts - today's network news is more like a TV version of People Magazine....
Did you know that on the same day that all of the networks reported on a zoo penguin (in Denmark?) that was knighted (in keeping with tradition), a former Roman Catholic bishop was inaugurated as the president of Paraguay, the poorest country in South America? Nothing against penguins (in fact, very much to the contrary) but might not this latter news have been of some interest, at the very least, to the tens of millions of Roman Catholics in this country?
"With todays internet and news sources anyone who is interested enough in finding economic news can easily find it."
As with many of today's issues, not enough people are interested to begin with. The MSM certainly doesn't help that cause when the people turn on the news to see morons yelling at each other about pig and lipstick metaphors.
I think it was a HUGE mistake to dictate that news must make money. They are way more concerned about attracting advertising dollars than they are about focusing on the issues.
do you really think newsweek would get published if it did not make money.
It's being published and it's not reporting any news.
And it's not as if the MSM, while ignoring the financial story, has done anything like an acceptable job of covering the campaign. Most of what they've spent their time on has been at the level of flag pins and pig lipstick.
If they had done a decent job of covering the campaign, i.e. examining and questioning the position of the candidates on the important issues, the financial story would have inevitably been covered.
My guess is the media was too busy trying to prove the surge wasn't working to focus on this. Besides Beck, here's someone who seemed to try and get both repbulicans and democrats to do something about the looming crisis:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080919-15.html
I am still hoping the media will tell us all of the reasons why the surge worked. For example, did Iran tell the Sadr militia to stand down? And how much did we pay to buy off various factions? And will the effects of the surge hold once we leave?
I missed Glenn Beck's warning, since I do not watch his show; but I did read a commentary he wrote for CNN.com explaining the causes of the current crisis. I this commentary, Mr. Beck makes reference to low-income families who bought 27-bedroom McMansions. Of course, not even Ed McMahon's mansion has 27 bedrooms ... so you will have to excuse me if I continue not to watch Glenn Beck's show.
With all those words, some pior to Gramm's work in 2002, what did they do to avoid this?
Some bipartisan concern was expressed after Enron went down. This concern, small as it was was quickly buried by lobbyists working for Freddy and Franny Mac(s).
Per FDL, what they worked on were plans for this bailout. To be run for the advantage of the major mistake makers and run by the same base population that supports and enables them.
Then you guessed wrong.
It was lipstick, pigs, and preachers.
Well, well,
I must be a conspiracy tin-hat fool type. The banksters on Wall Street have seen fit to put the gun to the head of Congress with an 'offer they can't refuse'. What's next,... a stallion's head in their beds ?
Remember, in the words of Michael Corleone, "It's strictly BUSINESS, nothing Personal". Isn't it ironic that these unprincipled, immoral and corrupt Investment Houses of shall we say, 'ill repute' are the very same charlatans who announce to the world and all who will hear that unregulated and free-spirited Capitalism works, unbridled laissez-faire and monetarism of the Milton Freidman school of thought is sacrosanct. It seems that the University of Chicago has not only been the denizen of the war criminalists Neo-Con Class but now we have the Banksters with PHd's and MBA's ready to replace representative self-governance with a deal that would have made Al Capone blush.
Ya see, these folks are ENTITLED to yours and mine hard -earned tax revenues WHEN they engage in risky derivative hedge-fund betting, credit -default swaps and every other non-productive, high risk investment scheme skull-duggery that are in essence so convoluted, they defy oversight and regulation.
So, here WE are..... on the edge of financial ruination. As to the Conspiracy Theory, Let's see, It has often been stated that the sycophants of the Far Right have been working overtime for some 30 years now to essentially overturn the Legacy of FDR's New Deal. Grover Norquist and his 'Get Government off my back' boys figure in here.... real Americans. As for the New Deal ...You know the legislation by which the government implemented Social Security, Medicare, Public work projects, etc.. all in the belief that the American people were the to be the recipients of Government services and benevolence..... after all THEY, You And I PAY for it.
We have gutted every oversight, regulatory mechanisn of the last 50 years to ensure that Capitalism wouldn't become so Predatory as to start cannibaliziing itself. This is the reason for the current finacial debacle WE are now facing. All with a little DEMOCRATIC assistance via Bill Clinton when he signed the Legislation repealing the Glass- Steagull Act of 1933.
These folks are in an EXCLUSIVE CLUB to which YOU and I are forever forbidden to enter. However, when their proverbial avarice multiplied a TRILLION times causes them to go belly-up, THEY are the FIRST ONES with their Hands oustretched to the GOVERNMENT crying , moaning and threatening for HELP.
SO there, Conspiracy you say..... Well if it walls like a duck, quacks likes a duck, CHANCES are it is ________ !!!!!
Conspiracy (legal definition)An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
Of course when your lobbyists write the laws or you can gut regulatory oversight at the drop of a few well place checks to fund re-election campaigns it is almost impossible to commit an illegal act. I suspect however that if there ever were a real investigation into how this kleptocratic wet-dream came about, more than a few would be doing hard time.
"Conspiracy tin-hat fool type"?
Only a fool or a right wing trolling shill would call you that.
C'mon - editors and publishers are about grabbin' eyeballs . . and current efforts depend upon the ongoing dumming of America . . Now really, do you know anybody who's read John Locke or Federalist Papers or deTocqueville, or any so-called journalists who might quote these guys ? C'mon.
Do you know how much mattresses cost these days? Who can afford one?
Actually, i went mattress shopping today. It depends on what you want, but we found a nice stearns and foster for about $1k. You can get a duxiana for $6k. Or, you can get one out of horsehair, etc., etc., and it goes for about $20k, plus tax.
The media is too stupid to cover any real issue, and will only damage democracy if it tries.
People who watch television news are not informed, yet they think they are. Only if the media completes its descent into trivia will people realize that they're <i>not</i> getting informed.
I belong to a few sites that focus on gold. This calamity has been predicted for the last year. msm wasn't interested, i guess.
Just because Glen Beck hosts the guys doing the Fiscal Wake up tour doesn't mean they agree with Beck's conclusions. Beck is a moron who blames everything on "liberals" from school shootings to the mortgage crisis. These cultic weenies are not helping America. Beck isn't doing sh*t about the problem.
Apart from the reality of economic crisis which is looming on the horizon of the nation from long time back the press and media has measureably failed to pin point the debacle of wall street calamity well in advance. Thisis rightly mentioned by the writer.
The press of a country is the nerve line of a democratic country. The hipe which is thesedays are projected by the media and the press focussing the residential electiom has side lined so many important issues of the country which need public attention.
http://www.statedemocracy.org
I'm a democrat, and even I can admit that regardless of who's 'fault' it may be, we've had a Democrat congress for some time now. Why is it that that is not discussed here? I think both parties are to blame. It needs to be fixed - and fixed immediately, for the sake of Global and National fiscal health and security. It's time that people stopped pointing fingers and begin working TOGETHER to resolve these all-important issues that affect each and every one of us.
You might be a phony. A dishonest punk. Maybe.
Two years. That's why. We've had a Democratic Congress for two years. Do you think this shit just happened overnight?
Both parties to blame? Maybe, but only one ideology is to blame: Market fundamentalism.
Fixed? No kidding. What is the fix and why do you believe it?
Together? All important issues? OK. What do you mean? What? How?
You are way too vague.