The Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2007

Business & Media Institute ^ | Unknown but recently | their staff

[LowCountryJoe]

10. Airlines are solely to blame for the unfriendly skies.

Media myth: Blame the airlines for all those flight delays; never mind the obsolete government-run agency creating the gridlock.

9. Consumer spending is the be-all, end-all of the economy.

Media myth: Without excessive consumer spending – especially at Christmastime – the U.S. economy will collapse.

8. The stock market is trouble, whether it goes up or down.

Media myth: One day the stock market can’t sustain growth; the next, we’re just one drop away from another crash.

7. Anyone who ‘denies’ global warming shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Media myth: Global warming could cause a ‘century of fires,’ just as it has created allergies and ended winter fashion. If we don’t do something now (i.e. spend hundreds of billions of dollars), it’s only going to get worse.

6. You’d better not eat/drink that!

Media myth: Forget the right to eat as you please; the nanny-state knows better.

5. Most Americans are losing their homes.

Media myth: Americans everywhere are losing their homes to foreclosure, and the housing bust is going to ruin the economy.

4. “Going Green” is good for America and business.

Media myth: Businesses are much better off if they go green, and that’s what people really want anyway.

3. Lenders are responsible for everyone’s debts.

Media myth: Drowning in red ink isn’t your fault; blame the guy who loaned you the money.

2. Free health care would be great!

Media myth: To save our children and the 47 million uninsured Americans, and to keep up with the rest of the world, we must have government-run health care.

1. The U.S. Economy is in recession.

Media myth: The U.S. economy is nearly in, or is in, a recession.

[LowCountryJoe]

Body of thread came from their exective summary. Link is to their full report and the full report has the counter claim -- the Institute's truth -- which sounds to me to be much more viable.

Doom and gloomers in this forum will be most unhappy with this commentary.

[1rudeboy]

When I posted it, they wouldn’t come out to play. :)

[1rudeboy]

10 comments here (some may have been mine, I don't remember).

[LowCountryJoe]

Oh, man. I’m sorry. I didn’t even bother to check to see if this had been posted before. Very sad that the doom & gloomers didn’t touch it. As we near the actual voting portion of the primaries, the FReepers with the pessimism tendency should get all the exposure to economic literacy that can be mustered.

[rbg81]

I think they forgot:

11. The US economy cannot survive without cheap, (illegal) immigrant labor. Beside, we can’t deport ‘em all, so lets make them all citizens. [After which, we will actually start enforcing the law. Really. Honest. No kidding. ]

The truth is that illegal labor is only cheap for the employer; it is very expensive for the rest of us, both financially and culturally.

[1rudeboy]

Don’t worry about it . . . you know that your typical doomer is not interested in learning anything, and only appears to chant slogans.

[LowCountryJoe]

How so financially?

Is legal immigration equally as devastating? Or is legal immigration a net benefit to the United States?

[Last Dakotan]

Our strength is our diversity.

[nj_pilot]

Well, let's have a go at #10: The authoritative source sited is some consultant hired by the airlines and Wired Magazine? Uh, OK. "Planes move fast - radar takes XX seconds to update?" So? Airplanes have mandatory separation standards that I can assure you are not measured in seconds.

I've never heard of the Boyd Group, but their "analysis" is way off. Delays are most problematic at the terminal, not en-route. there are only so many runways, and no matter what you do to the en-route system, you're not going to have much more density of traffic on and off of the existing runways.

So who's to blame for the delays that start at the terminals? There is some government causation here, but it's not what you read in the article. Airlines have packed the schedules especially with more smaller aircraft. This consumes the *airport* or *runway* capacity especially at the airlines' peak morning and afternoon push. So how is it the gubmint's blame? If they auctioned off the peak slots and metered the arrivals and departures to what the system (runways) can absorb, then the delays would go away. Ticket prices would rise, but so be it - the current system has no market-clearing mechanism for a scarse resource.

While there are warts on the en-route ATC system, it is not the root of the problem.

[LowCountryJoe]

That’s seems pretty credible...coming from a pilot. Full disclosure question: are you a former pilot that works or has worked for the FAA or ATC System?

[clamper1797]

Our strength is our diversity.

Our strength is our weakness

[pburgh01]

Well #1 and #5 have their fans here. The culprits come slinking out of their holes to chime in and spam FR with pontifications on how the mortgage, real estate and credit crisis will all lead to a downfall of the US econonmy. How ChiCom supermen will take over the world with their bad haircuts and their particular accumen for making $1.69 straw brooms will buy out our 3/1 ARMS and make us all serfs. Conservatives have their miserable envious cranks also and #1 and #5 in particular seems to bring those bottom feeders out in droves here.

[unixfox]

Cheap ILLEGAL labor sure is keeping prices down isn't it?

/sarcasm

[Gideon7]

4.9% growth is not a recession!

MSM idiots.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Except when there is a ‘RAT in the White House.

Then everything is reversed.

[bill1952]

I think they forgot:

11. The US economy cannot survive without cheap - insert anything de jour here -

you got it.

[LowCountryJoe]

Really? Cannot survive? We all wither and die or is there some other method in which we don't survive? And it is this non-survival mode all laid at the feet of cheap labor?

Elaborate...with more hyperbole, if you would, please.

[Finny]

The truth is that illegal labor is only cheap for the employer; it is very expensive for the rest of us, both financially and culturally.

Another truth is that regulatory penalties and direct government interference in the free-market determination of wages and benefits, makes it so that NO labor is cheap for legitimate employers in America.

This is a major reason I pray that people realize the importance of LIMITED GOVERNMENT. It is the liberal application of government that has created the illegal immigration mess in the first place. To wit: minimum wage laws, generous freebie government entitlements for "minority" poor; and pushing politics of envy by demonizing employers foremost, when meddlesome government is the primary culprit.

Builiding a bigger fence, with all respect, is treating a symptom, not a cause.

[LowCountryJoe]

This is a major reason I pray that people realize the importance of LIMITED GOVERNMENT. It is the liberal application of government that has created the illegal immigration mess in the first place. To wit: minimum wage laws, generous freebie government entitlements for "minority" poor; and pushing politics of envy by demonizing employers foremost, when meddlesome government is the primary culprit.

Builiding a bigger fence, with all respect, is treating a symptom, not a cause.

Damn! And when I suggested nearly the same thing, I was the forum's heretic.

[BJungNan]

5. Most Americans are losing their homes.

No, but in some neighborhoods as many as 15% of the homeowners are.