Posted on 06/12/2011 5:30:38 AM PDT by Kaslin
Have you noticed that economic data seems to almost always be reported as a surprise these days? As bad news emerges, it’s being portrayed as though nobody could have possibly seen it coming!
Michael Barone, the esteemed editorialist and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, along with the “Instapundit” blogger Glenn Reynolds, have both noted that the word “unexpectedly” has often accompanied media descriptions of our economy as of late. Sentences like "Previously owned home sales unexpectedly fall," and "New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed," are pretty standard stuff right now, as President Obama ramps-up his re-election bid.
Barone pointed out that to some degree, this is symptomatic of the political bias of many journalists. “It's obviously going to be hard to achieve the unacknowledged goal of many mainstream journalists -- the president's re-election -- if the economic slump continues” he wrote late last month. “So they characterize economic setbacks as unexpected, with the implication that there's still every reason to believe that, in Herbert Hoover's phrase, prosperity is just around the corner.”
But Barone also noted that many media professionals really believe President Obama’s economic policies – massive government regulation of business, and lots and lots of deficit spending – are actually conducive to economic growth. “A less cynical explanation,” Barone noted about the surprised reporters, “is that many journalists really believe that the Obama administration's policies are likely to improve the economy. Certainly that has been the expectation as well as the hope of administration policymakers.”
I think that Barone is correct on both accounts. But I also believe that journalists and members of the Obama Administration are not the only people who are surprised. Lots of “Obama faithful,” who were quick to embrace his economic rhetoric as the 2008 crisis unfolded, are now genuinely shocked that things haven’t worked out.
President Obama, of course, ran a successful campaign by portraying himself as the “un-George W. Bush” candidate. While painting his actual opponent John McCain as a “carbon copy” of Bush back in 2008, Mr. Obama was able to rhetorically juxtapose his policies on just about everything – economic matters included – with President Bush’s policies, and a majority of voters went with the guy who was offering “change.”
The flawed assumption that many of our fellow Americans made – an assumption that many are still making today – is that President Obama’s policies must be good, because they’re different from those of his predecessor. This assumption not only entails a lack of knowledge of both Presidents, but it also entails some horribly wrong-headed assumptions about economics, itself.
Stop and ask some of the Obama die-hard’s. You’ll find many of them still juxtaposing Bush with Obama, and their conclusion is simple: “Obama good, Bush bad.” And from this they often try to derive thoughts on economic policy, which frequently end up looking something like “government good, business bad.”
Think about it. It’s a fairly common belief that “under Bush the economy was un-regulated, and that’s how out-of-control business people drove us over the cliff. But now that it’s regulated, things can only get better.” President Obama still reiterates this theme, in a variety of different ways.
Of course, the idea that our economy is, or was “un-regulated,” is utter nonsense. The electronic device with which you’re reading this – a computer, “electronic tablet,” iPhone, whatever –was designed, assembled, transported, and sold under heavy U.S. government regulation, and it’s powered with electricity that was generated under heavy regulation. The same would have been true had you read one of my columns back during the eight years of the Bush presidency, as well.
As for the mortgage lending meltdown – well indeed, bad government was a big part of that problem. Yet it wasn’t a lack of government regulation that helped bring about the crisis, but rather it was too much of the wrong type of government regulation that did the damage.
For years the feds sought to make it increasingly easy to buy real estate, all in the name of the “affordable housing” agenda. Flawed as his presidency was, George W. Bush actually tried at least twice to reign-in the out-of-control lending, only to be shot-down by both Democrats and Republicans in the Congress (a fact I documented succinctly in my latest book – see below).
Selfish and destructive as the easy lending policies were in the long run, the cheapening of the mortgage markets brought about so much short-term political gain for congressional members that they couldn’t bring themselves to say “no.” And in a similar way, President Obama is today acting-out his own self-serving agenda.
Bailouts and “waivers” go to companies that can be politically beneficial to Barack Obama. And while the President says he “saved the American automotive industry,” in reality he “saved” some unionized assembly jobs – which is good for his political base – while G.M. remains fiscally unsound and continues to lose money.
Hopefully the President’s loyalists will soon realize that government is not always good. It can’t happen too soon.
Government is NEVER good. It is a necessary evil, and should be kept as small as possible.
” Michael Barone, the esteemed editorialist and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, along with the “Instapundit” blogger Glenn Reynolds, have both noted that the word “unexpectedly” has often accompanied media descriptions of our economy as of late. “
Hmmmmm...
It would appear that Barone’s (et. some al.)late-to-the-party acknowledgement of this is what it takes to make ‘official’ something we’ve been aware of, and laughing about, for two years.....
“The “Government Is Always Good” Economy”
Government doesn’t solve problems. Government is the problem. - RR
The failure of Obama to be re-elected came as a complete suprise as many of his libtard supporters contemplated suicide over that and living under a Palin administration.
Obama did grow the size of government.
Dems benefit by the bad economy. Makes more state-dependent voters for them. The worst hit are blacks and they back Obama 96%. Blacks are also the worst hit economically by illegal immigration. Yet “their party” is all for it.
The real problem for the American people in this debacle was that they believed that Bush was to blame for the 2008 recession when actually it was the Democrat Congress, elected in 2006 which trashed the economy, I say purposefully, in an attempt to tarnish Bush.
Yet, people still remain ignorant about the evils of what happens when the media becomes a co-conspirator in that evil, instead of a force for good to keep that evil in check by reporting the truth.
I have no respect for those who willfully choose their ideology over truth.
The pharisees are a good example of a state run media and church. I wish churches would teach the whole truth about Jesus how he chewed them out at times, and drove them out of His temple with violence.
Bush still signed the bills.
While he is not the cause, he was part of the problem.
Yep. I remember Bush trying to get a bit of oversight on Fannie and Freddie. I also remember Dodd and Frank publicly stating how healthy these two institutions were - about 3-4 months before they were "unexpectedly" discovered to have been trashing the global economy behind the scenes for years.
“The real problem for the American people in this debacle was that they believed that Bush was to blame for the 2008 recession when actually it was the Democrat Congress, elected in 2006 which trashed the economy, I say purposefully, in an attempt to tarnish Bush.”
Bush used the “ownership society” for his own political purposes speaking of it many times in speeches. If he didn’t want what happened to happen, he, and he alone had the ability to stop it. That he didn’t stop it hardly absolves him from blame. Congress has a large part of the blame, to be sure, but Bush is not blameless as you say he is.
An otherwise excellent article but this last sentence is pure fantasy.
Actually, I starting noticing that about 20 years ago.
Right around the time I started listening to Rush Limbaugh.
The fact that the DEMORATS brought America's economy to it's knees has been obvious for years.
The question you have to answer now: Who of the radical left engineered this collapse on P U R P O S E ?
As you answer that question, consider Obama as one at the top of the list. A Community Organizer, another description for a racist baiting anti-American radical, Obama participated as an ACORN lawyer who sued to prevent those racist financial institutions from denying housing to those oppressed Americans who deserved a part of America's dream.
Obama is one of the leaders who is destroying America to remake it with trash like him in control. Obviously George Soros and Bill Ayers are also in that mix.
Make no mistake, this is T R E A S O N and those responsible should be tried and convicted for these capital crimes.
When we start the trials, it will be difficult to separate morons that includes people like John Kerry. What do you do with useful idiots? I contend people like him could not have been so stupid that they didn't see what was being done to destroy America. My thought is you hang useful idiots too.
The economic problems are the fault of liberals (mostly) and RINOs secondarily.
Liberals pushed the agenda of housing for those who could not afford it and RINOs did not stand in their way.
To their credit, Bush and some Republicans tried to sound the warning bells, but demagogued into silence by the liberals and a complicit media.
Conservatives must be clear that the fault is not just Democrats.
Worse than that they planned and executed the financial melt down of September '08 along with the housing crash. That was the "October Surprise" one month early.
For his entire eight years the media and the Democrats bashed Bush, starting with the mantra that he stole the 2000 election and continuing with "where were the WMDs", the costs of the two wars, the complaints about security in the Patriot Act, claiming 4.8% unemployment was too high, saying he acted like a coward immediately after 9/11, wanting an investigation of his legal advisors concerning their advice, threatening prosecutions of Bush and his aides, and on and on until the very end. That was their political strategy, country be damned. That was their version of the old legal saw, "When you have the facts pound the facts. When you don't have the facts on your side, pound the table." They pounded the table.
Concerning the article, "unexpected results" is just a variation of "unintended consequences" and neither is true. Both are smoke screens to hide their real intentions. The repeated use of "unexpected" by the media is organized. When the Journo List was exposed they simple closed shop under that name but kept up the practice elsewhere.
Another smokescreen is the claim that Obama must improve the economy to get reelected. Many, including Rush, say that liberals don't know how to create jobs, they know nothing of how an economy works. BS! They know perfectly well how Free Enterprise works and they are going in the opposite direction on purpose so that the economy doesn't improve. It is claimed they are Keynesians and are following Keynes's economic model of spend, spend, spend. The problem with that is that Keynes's policies were not an economic model. They were a model for furthering Marxism and that is what the Democrats are doing.
They think that they have been so successful through the years stacking the voter registration rolls with phony voters that they can steal every election from now on out. That doesn't mean they have stopped registering illegals, dead people, old people who don't know what they are doing, etc., while blocking votes by the military and others.
Soros at present is putting into place a plot to control the election of the Secretaries of State in 14 key states to further assure they can steal the election. Secretaries of State determine the rules, the process and then the certification of elections.
We are witnessing a coup d'etat! We must find a way to stop it.
Does anybody believe that the Democrats voted for Obama because they thought he would create more private sector jobs?
“Why, I’m voting for Obama because he has a proven record of creating jobs in the private sector.”
Nope. Don’t see that.
And they’re not smart enough to care that the private sector is hurting.
“The Democrats will take care of me.”
That’s why they vote Democrat.
It’s easier to explain algebra to cats than it is to explain economics to Democrats. You have to change them with simple messages.
“Democrats hurt you!”
“Republicans help you!”
Go deeper than that, and they shut down.
Can’t wait for that headline.
Let me guess...FL, NC, PA, NJ, OH, WI, MI, MO, IA, NM, NV, WA, AZ, CO.
You are too kind to libtards. The real reason people vote Democrat is:
"Democrats gimme free s(censored)!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.