News Media and Congress

In yesterday's posting, I said I would say more in today's blog about Congress and the news media having far more control over the economy than a President.

First I will tackle the news media and the control they have over the economy.
Consumers make up nearly 65% of our economy. How the consumer is made to feel about the economy affects their spending and that has a tremendous impact on the economy. Americans are very impressionable people. When they are told over and over again what terrible shape the economy is in, they began to believe it and start cuttting back on their spending. Now this really gives the news people something to jump on. They pound away at how the economy is slipping, scaring the consumer even more and they cut back even more on their spending. If this is kept up long enough, they cut back in their spending to the point the economy slips into a recesssion. A good example of this is what happened in 1991. In June of that year the economy was in great shape; consumer confidence was very high, President Bush's approvel rating was also very high. In that month my son in law and I both noticed the different network news departments were putting on leading Democrats on a daily basis to tell the public about how the economy was going to start going down hill. We were both alarmed about this. My son in law said "My God, they are going to talk us right into a recession". I started switching from news channel to news channel day after day to see if this was going to continue. Sure enough, all three networks, CNN and Public TV were all doing the same thing, every single day, often allowing five minutes or more out of their daily broadcast. If they didn't feel the Democratic leader was coming on strong enough the tv anchor person would ask leading questions to make their pitch even stronger. I started going to the library and checking the weekly news magazines to see if they were also making this same pitch. They were. Obviously this was a well organized effort by both the national news media and the top Democratic leaders to talk this country in to a recession.
Their efforts were not rewarded during the rest of June nor the month of July. There was very little negative movement during August but in September, the consumer confidence level started dropping as did President Bush's approval rating. As soon as the Democrats and the national news media saw this they really started turning on the heat. As consumer confidence dropped, so did the economy. Within a few months the economy dropped into negative territory. Six months later we were in a recession. President Bush tried to talk to the country about the economy to restore people's faith in it but the networks refused to carry his speeches, saying they would just be polical speeches. Talking to the people to restore their confidence is one of the few tools a President has in controlling our ecomomy but that only works if he is allowed to reach the people. (By the way, four years later, all the networks were carrying President Clinton's speeches right up to election day with out any regard to whether or not they were political. I don't think Clinton ever gave a speech in his life which was not political). By the summer of 1992 offically we were no longer in a recession but leading Democrats and the national news media continued to try to convince the public we were still in a recession right up to election day. Of course, President Bush lost his bid for re-election, primarily because we were talked into a recession by those opposed to him. This, I believe, shows you the kind of power the news media has on influencing the direction our economy takes.
One thing that amazed me was how few people I talked to had taken any notice about what the Democrats and the news media was doing to this country. They were so obvious and blatent in what they were doing, I still don't undersant why the whole country wasn't in a uproar. In my opinion what they did was downright criminal because there were people who lost their lives because of that recession.

By the way, this might be a good time to explain to those of you who do not know, just what constitutes a recession ( I mean offically, not what the democrats and the national news media wants you to believe it is, when a Republican is in the White House. Their definition does not apply when a Democrat is President).

We are in a recession when the country experiences two or more consequtive quarters of negative economic growth.

I am continually hearing people, news editorials and Democratic politicians talk about our being in a recession now. We are NOT! During the second quarter of this year (January 1 through June 30) our economy experienced a 3.3 per cent growth. I have not seen any reports of what our economy did during July and August but even if they were both in negative territory, we would still be four months short of being in a recession.

I had planned to cover how Congress has a great deal of control over our economy in today's posting but I believe today's blog is quite long enough so will take that up in tomorrow's posting.