Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The Main Stream Media Just Doing Their Job





In my last post I pointed out that the University of Michigan's index of consumer sentiment showed an extraordinarily depressed group of consumers in the USA.One reason for this is the relentless emphasis by the main stream media on negative stories and negative interpretations of any news event. Of course the MSM aren't entirely to blame. After all they are in the business of telling people what they want to hear. That is why they are so useful as a gauge of popular sentiment.

Here are two recent magazine covers, one from the The Economist and the second from Time Magazine. The Economist cover depicts President Bush being blown away in a hurricane of his mistakes. The Time cover screams about " The Great Retirement Ripoff ". It explains how nasty corporations and their partners in crime, the US congress, are picking people's pockets and denying them their promised retirement benefits.

I think it is worth remembering the last Time cover story that screamed about disappearing retirement savings. Here it is. Note the date: July 29, 2002. Just a few days earlier the S&P 500 had hit 771. Today it is above 1200. Draw your own conclusions.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If A=B and B=C then A=C.... NOT!!!

Faulty cause and effect reasoning

MSM tell the public what MSM wants them to here. Been there done tha.

Anonymous said...

Since when did the S & P 500 directly correlate to overall retirement savings in the United States? Last I heard the S & P was just a broad stock market indicator. Just because the general stock market trend is increasing doesn't mean retirement savings are necessarily safe.... If this is your conclusion, shouldn't you elaborate on the steps that relate one to the other?