When the right blames the media for economic insecurities

March 2, 2008

For the last several years, the conservative line on the economy was relatively straightforward: the economy was great, but the mean ol’ mainstream media refused to tell anyone about it, in part because news outlets were obsessed with Iraq.

Now, apparently, the conservative line has shifted. The economy, they say, is still great, but the mean ol’ mainstream media has confused people into thinking that the economy is souring.

Today on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Tim Russert pointed to a new CNBC poll showing that 83 percent of the American public rates the U.S. economy as only fair/poor. Right-wing strategist Mary Matalin tried to brush off that number, stating that most Americans are nevertheless happy about their personal finances.

When liberal strategist Bob Shrum pointed out that her statement is false, Matalin switched to the well-worn tactic of blaming the media for the problem:

MATALIN: Well, there’s an element of cognitive dissonance there, because if you ask them how their own personal finances are going, those numbers completely switch. Yes — he’s looking around. Those numbers are completely true. They absolutely switch on their own personal finances.

SHRUM: I think most people are getting very insecure about their personal finances.

MATALIN: That’s because they’re berated with these numbers.

Lest anyone think Matalin is just some random, unhinged voice, keep in mind, none other than Karl Rove made the exact same argument a couple of weeks ago on (where else?) Fox News, insisting that the “media has been beating the drum for years and years and years that the economy stinks. And after a while, that begins to color people’s attitudes.”

To suggest that the far-right is deeply out of touch with the concerns of the typical American is a dramatic understatement.

Then again, I suppose the Rove/Matalin nonsense is a step up from Sam Zell’s nonsense. Zell, the billionaire owner of newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, blamed the Democratic presidential candidates in an interview last week.

“Obviously what we have going on is an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Zell said. He continued:

“We have two Democratic candidates who are vying with each other to describe the economic situation worse. The reality is that if you live on Wall Street and you’re in the credit markets the world couldn’t be worse. If you’re a farmer and you’re getting $25 for your wheat, you’re having a great time. If you’re a CEO and you’ve got a balance sheet that’s bullet-proof, you’re in a great position. This whole thing is way out of control, way out of hand.”

The reality, of course, is that the right is desperate to pin the blame on its perceived enemies, but the economic downturn is a) real; and b) hardly a mystery. There’s a mortgage crisis, a credit crunch, a weak dollar, huge deficits, uncomfortably high inflation, weak employment numbers, and rising energy and healthcare costs.

Republicans are left with “let’s cut taxes for millionaires” as some kind of economic policy. It’s foolish, but that doesn’t justify blaming Barack Obama and the New York Times for Americans’ understandable economic insecurities.

Republicans are left with “let’s cut taxes for millionaires” as some kind of economic policy.

Or as John McCain calls it on his issues page, “economic stimulus”. And that is exactly all he offers – 1) cut corporate taxes 2) Allow First-Year Deduction, Or “Expensing”, Of Equipment And Technology Investments. and 3) Establish Permanent Tax Credit Equal To 10 Percent Of Wages Spent On R&D.

  • This is why, when the news on any front is bad, the Bush administration simply stops talking about it and strangles any official statistics to be published. They’ve been doing it for years, has everyone forgotten that so quickly?

  • Gee Mary, good luck polishing that turd!

    The economy has sucked for years under Bush. We’ve had an economy which is bleeding every last cent out of the middle class. The middle class is now broke. The MSM can NO LONGER ignore how bad it’s gotten, but it’s been obvious to the rest of us for years.

  • Most people I know are concerned about economic realities. They don’t have the luxury of worrying about economic insecurities. Just who is out of the mainstream, here?

  • This is a brilliant Republican strategy: “You voters are too stupid to recognize how good you have it.”

  • Saying things are great while the ship is sinking seems to be Business 101 . Straight out of the Enron Handbook

  • I frequently see a local Republican Central Committee member who seems to receive the talking points by radio control. On Saturday morning, his talking point was that the media was spreading lies about the economy and that we were in a recession.

    I was pretty amazed, but it’s obviously the message that’s going out.

  • Rereading my comment shows that I should have been clearer, My Republican associate adamantly denies that we’re in a recession, and it’s only a lie from the librul media.

  • These corporate/right wing/ repiglicans don’t deal with actual reality: ‘the reality based community”. No, they deal and peddle delusions as reality. To admit to actual reality is to admit they they are in fact FUCKING WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Can’t do that so they just keep making up more delusions and lies to believe in. Case in point is the Shit Stain in Chief called Bush. Just keeps encasing Itself in one delusion after another so that it can never be wrong. Yes, according to the Shit Stain, he is really like Harry Truman and all the stupid people now, oh gosh here comes reality: only an 18 percent approval rating, will realize 50 years from now just how great the Shit Stain is. So, of course, the nature of these delusional bags of scum can never be wrong.

  • If Matalin, Zell, and Rove had been on the Titanic (on a certain dark night) they would have cautioned against alerting anyone in steerage – because a panic would have far worse consequences than we could foresee.

    At best this is a chicken or egg argument – at ‘best’.

    At worst it’s a matter of repeating a lie long enough that people begin to believe it, the media strategy that Rove and Luntz utilized to great effect.

    The line of ‘reasoning’ parallels many conservative frames, and frames adopted by some so-called liberals: You’re responsible for your own success or failure. You must be redeemed in order to be saved. This simply ignores the systematic problems that are part of living in any community. No social organization will perfectly meet the needs of all members but to simply ascribe all the ills to the individual is baloney.

    The Rove/Luntz/Matalin/Zell message is propaganda. At it’s heart it blames the victims and does nothing to get us beyond the crisis.

    “Rearrange the deck chairs you poor louts!” Your true defenders, Karl, Frank, Mary, and Sam.

  • There is the idea that you can talk the economy down. If the Democrats keep talking about how bad the economy is and that anyone would have to be a fool to start a new business, expand, or hire, then how will the country ever come out of the recession. The other question is what will happen when the the Democrats raise taxes while in a recession. Will it make it longer or more severe?

  • So it’s the fault of the media and the Democratic candidates that the economy is tanking? Ok, whatever…

    Last time i checked, both of the Democratic candidates were still blathering on about how we’re the wealthiest nation in the world, which is a boldfaced lie. The candidates are talking about the economy because real people are worried about the real economy; such talk is no surprise from politicians. Neither candidate is spelling out the underlying causes or explaining what they would do about those causes.

    And the media is terribly complicit in so many Americans waking up to find the economy halfway down the tubes. Has the media been explaining to people what the dollar losing half its value in the last 5 years really means? Has the media gathered the scattered data and presented the M3 numbers that the government no longer deems fit to print? Has the media examined real unemployment, rather than just quoting the bogus government numbers? Has the media explained that inflation numbers that don’t include the largest portions of household spending probably shouldn’t be trusted?

    As i said above, ok, whatever…

  • The other question is what will happen when the the Democrats raise taxes while in a recession. Will it make it longer or more severe?

    Let’s see. Coming out of the early ’90s Reagan recession, Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993.

    How’d the rest of that decade turn out?

  • If you really think repeating bs in the news can alter the course of reality, how do you explain the fact that even with planted stories, paid “journalists”, censorship, national security and state secret suppression, persecution of whistleblowers, and destroyed criminal evidence, the war in Iraq is still obviously a total failure and a mistake.

    Remember when the liberal media was supposedly suppressing the “good news” from Iraq? After five years it seems like some of that good news might have finally come out. Instead we have new photos from Abu Ghraib, Bush desperately trying to shut down investigations into WMD lies, war mismanagement and now, the mismanagement of embassy construction. It wasn’t good news that was being suppressed in Iraq, it was just more bad news.

  • In the past week alone, the markets have slumped—not because of the media, but because corporation after corporation keeps stepping up to inform the business community that they’re coming apart at the seams.

    Housing has continued to spiral downward, because no one wants to buy a house that’s going to be worth a lot less 6 months after escrow closes than 6 hours after escrow closes.

    Bernanke stands before the cameras and admits, “We should expect bank failures”—and Mary Contrary demands that we continue to believe that “all is well.”

    Please. Let me know when the dunderheads start telling everyone to “eat cake.” I’ll bring the guillotine….

  • Gee, but EVERYBODY knows that Bill Clinton just TALKED UP the economy and all that money that the middle class was getting was FAKE!

    What a LOAD…

  • Glen @ 3

    Gee Mary, good luck polishing that turd!

    She’d been dong that for years….. Either at work (Dick Cheney) or at home (James Carville)

    With that kind of experience it has to ‘feel’ true.

  • Absolutely, it’s a librul Democrat party conspiracy. Not only in America, but everywhere that libruls draw breath – like in England, where they’ve pretended the dollar has sunk out of sight against the Euro, to the extent that shopkeepers feel bold enough to charge an inflated exchange rate, and visiting Americans are dumb enough to pay it. Suckers!!

    Up to a certain point, the economy is an expression of consumer confidence that transcends mere dollars and cents. There’s something to the suggestion that thinking the economy is in great shape can make it so, insofar as when consumers realize they haven’t got much disposable income BUT THEY BELIEVE THINGS ARE ABOUT TO IMPROVE, they continue to spend. In this, the right wingers are far more to blame for their manipulation of the economic news, for jiggerypokery with job-creation numbers (remember the effort to get burger-flipping classified as a manufacturing job?) and for plastering over the looming subprime mortgage crash long after many sensible people saw it coming.

    An absolutely essential quality of the Bush hardcore base is the ability to deny reality when it’s obvious, and to fool oneself. Exhibit A, Mary Matalin.

  • I was talking with some friends last night, trying to figure out WHY the right is doing what they are doing. Why are they intentionally ruining this country? There is no benefit that I could see. It’s a bad situation for almost everyone involved from business down to average Americans. What is the point?

    The consensus seemed to be that this is economical warfare to create two classes; to eradicate the middle class completely and to transfer the wealth of this country to the few and the rest get nothing.

    We now have one in 10 Americans in prison. I read a very powerful interview with a woman who wrote the book Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival. She was in the Bloods in South-Central LA, and she got out. She is the only one, of all the people she knew, that got out. Almost everyone else is either dead or in prison (btw, I highly recommend this interview – sorry, I don’t know how to do that ref thing): http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20080229_a_girl_gangsters_story_of_survival/ , (and make sure to read the one comment) but this one passage really drove something home.

    Everyone was disappearing into jails. And it wasn’t just because of drugs. That’s a misconception. One homeboy, 17 years old, had been a foster kid. He had no priors; no nothing. What he did have was two homies staying at his house. He finally told them they’d have to leave and offered to help them move. The car broke down and they said they would go get another, meaning steal one. He didn’t want anything to do with that. He left on foot and they went and got another car. They ended up pulling around and told him to get in. He was in a Crip neighborhood and scared, so he got in. The police pulled them over two blocks later, and he’s got a life sentence in prison because he was deemed to have been an accomplice to a carjacking, which is seen as a “gang-related crime” and is thus sentenced under “gang enhancement” statutes. And that was it, even though the lady said in court that he hadn’t been there when they took the car. His life was over. Here’s a foster kid who worked his entire way through high school, tried hard, got a full scholarship to college and it all got taken away because he got into the car. Was that the best judgment in the world on his part? No. Did it deserve the kind of outcome he received? Hell no. In white communities I think they call that joy riding. And they certainly don’t hand out life sentences for it.

    This gave me a little more insight into why we are building all those prisons (along with the number of poeple currently incarcerated), the severe poor, the blacks, the underclass are being shifted off into prisons, and the middle class is becoming the new poor.

    I still have a hard time accepting this concept of their glee in ruining our nation – but I also had such a major case of cognitive dissonance over us invading Iraq for their oil that it took me more than two years to accept it.

    Look at what is happening here. How many parallels are we seeing that lead up to the Great Depression?

    Honestly, the right can say whatever they want. The fact that Bush didn’t know gas was approaching $4.00 a gallon (and the look on his face when he found out was a look of pleasure, not of horror) is but one more indicator that he is out of touch. But it’s really much worse than that; he doesn’t care. The people know what it is taking to get by. Now that equity has been tapped out and the home ATM is no longer functioning, people have turned to credit cards to survive. What’s going to happen when the credit markets implode like the subprime did, I don’t know. But I seriously fear finding out.

  • I like this part:

    “If you’re a farmer and you’re getting $25 for your wheat, you’re having a great time. If you’re a CEO and you’ve got a balance sheet that’s bullet-proof, you’re in a great position.”

    Okay, all of you wheat farmers and CEOs, step up and admit that the economy is great. Admit it, dammit!

    All of the rest of you should just blame yourselves for not being wheat farmers or CEOs. Rather shortsighted of you, actually.

  • Blaming the media when it is convenient..
    Why not take a personal reality check… The media has been reporting on the economy for better or for worse, but since that is not ‘sexy’ enough it usually is buried somewhere inside.

    The majority of the ‘dumb’ American public isn’t interested in finding out what is going on. Just like anything else…
    Blame somebody else .. Or Nobody told me…

    Come on… you’ve heard it all before

    This goes for the Democrats as well as the Republicans. It’s time that ‘americans’ start to take responsibility for their own future.

    You want a better future? Vote a Democratic ticket.. Not because you are a supporter of democrats, but because Republicans have been screwing up this country for way too long.

  • Hey, I’m totally digging this line from the GOP. Please please please stick with this talking point guys. It’s a winner! ‘Member that bit about Bush I and his unfamiliarity with the grocery store scanner? Don’t. Just bury that memory as deep as ever you can where it will never trouble your beautiful minds. This here line is the one you’ll win with in 2008. Guaranteed. Just stick to your guns!

  • #25.

    If they don’t know that by now, they are not paying attention.

    Oh, right. Nevermind.

  • Remember also the last Bush said that those who were concerned about their jobs and finances were statistically insignificant. So this Bush’s reaction is somewhat less offensive and slightly more compassionate than that.

    If anything, the mainstream media is complicit in our economic problems. They should have been reporting on the danger of rising housing prices and creative mortgages years ago, not after it was too late. Only the lefty media seemed to see this coming. And they’re still not reporting on the potential impact of the imploding bond market on pension funds and municipal funds, to name just a few. Pathetic.

  • Mary Matalin and Karl Rove should go on every media outlet, speak to every newspaper and hold as many press conferences as they can emphasizing their perspective on the economy: that everything’s great with this Republican economy and it’s the media’s fault for all the bad news. And every voter across the land will go out and vote for the Democrats. Because there are many millions of Americans who go to the grocery stores and gas pumps, pay their utility bills and fork over ever-increasing wads to insurance companies who are feeling how much less cash they have every month. Way to go guys. You’re burying yourselves in your own crap.

  • It all falls into the lies and propaganda categories. Like War is Peace and Black is White …sort of like the old cold war Soviet rhetoric.

  • Karl Rove said: “[the] media has been beating the drum for years and years and years that the economy stinks. And after a while, that begins to color people’s attitudes.”

    I find it especially amusing that Republicans are saying this now. Does anyone remember Bush’s campaign rhetoric back in 2000, when he was running for President? He was constantly telling people that the economy was on its last ropes and that the only way to keep it from collapsing entirely was to pass his tax cuts. Now the same voices that approved of his message then are crying that others are supposedly hurting the economy by doing exactly what they did.

    Hypocrites.

  • And it’s a great time to be me, because I’m paying an all-time high price for wheat, milk, and produce?

    It’s a great time because the wage difference between the CEO and I hasn’t ever been larger in my life? And wage growth for my end isn’t keeping up with inflation?

    It’s a great time because fuel, which most americans have to guzzle because of the way we’ve designed our transportation system, and because none of the big three have electric or hybrid cars as options to the low end of the price range?

    It’s a great time because our investments – Bonds and Mutual Funds – have never performed worse, as a group, in my life than over the last eight years?

    Terrif. I’m thrilled about the economy.

  • Oh! I haven’t even pointed out that even with the low dollar in the US… Tourism in the US has never been lower in my lifetime?

    WTF, mate, what am I supposed to look forward to?

  • MsJoanne,

    @21, you claim “We now have one in 10 Americans in prison.” I’m going with the assumption that’s a typo, because there are not enough prison cells on the entire continent—from the Panama Canal to the northern edges of Canada—to hold 10% of the US population….

  • I don’t blame Rove/Luntz/Matalin/Zell for destroying the country. I blame those of you who voted for dumbya, when you knew he was an idoit and got fooled by Rove/Luntz/Matalin/Zell. Now you deserve the consequences of the $10 trillion debt to china as well as the 2nd Great Depression you help create. China will take over the country without firing a bullet , just by calling the debt that dumbya created.

  • The reality, of course, is that the right is desperate to pin the blame on its perceived enemies, but the economic downturn is a) real; and b) hardly a mystery. There’s a mortgage crisis, a credit crunch, a weak dollar, huge deficits, uncomfortably high inflation, weak employment numbers, and rising energy and healthcare costs.

    And all of it caused by the hijackers of the word “conservative” who are nowhere close to being conservatives, anymore than was a certain German politician, though he claimed he was in 1933.

    It’s good all this is happening now, because it’s hard for those who are responsible for putting the ship on the rocks to point at a different captain.

  • Re Crissa @31: It isn’t going to be the big three that brings about that change, but its coming. (though the low end price range may have to wait a bit) The Honda FCX will be available for limited leases in California this summer. It will cost $600 a month, but that includes all service.

    The beauty of the vehicle (it has a hydrogen fuel cell power-plant) is that when it hits full production c. 2012, it will come with a home fueling station. A home fueling station and 350 miles/fill isn’t bad…but it gets better. That fueling station will also provide all your home energy needs. The first generation will operate on natural gas, i.e. breaking the molecular bonds to extract hydrogen; the second generation will be water electrolysis powered by wind/solar.

    It is a joint operation with Plug Power (NY). The unit is about the size of an air-conditioner and it costs roughly the same. Honda owns the license on the technology. Makes you wonder why none of the big three thought to buy that license, doesn’t it? (It doesn’t surprise me; i’m from Detroit.)

    And don’t buy the lie about there not being a hydrogen infrastructure. It’s a common industrial gas. There are several companies in the States right now that make their money by piping/shipping hydrogen around the country.

  • I watched the clip on MSNBC and saw James Carville do an OK job of rebutting Ms. Matalin, his wife.

    I believe that Matalin and Carville don’t believe in anything except money and power and how it benefits them. How else could that marriage work? If Carville actually believed what he said on MTP how could he allow a fundraiser to be held in his own home for Scooter Libby? That sort of cognitive dissonance would make my head explode.

    I’m hoping that the 2008 elections can marginalize jackasses-for-hire like Carville and Matalin and open an honest discourse about what America really stands for.

  • I have questioned how a marriage like that could work.

    How do you marry someone with values that messed up?

    She must give really give good….

  • And all of it caused by the hijackers of the word “conservative” who are nowhere close to being conservatives, anymore than was a certain German politician, though he claimed he was in 1933.

    Gratuitous Godwin violation aside, why do you say they aren’t conservatives? The phenomena you describe are the result of laissez-faire deregulatory policies, massive tax cuts for the wealthy, overweening belligerence abroad and a host of other policies conservatives have stood for for decades. They got control of the country and implemented 90% of exactly what they’ve been demanding since Goldwater. The fact that it turned out disastrously should be no surprise to anyone. But if they aren’t conservatives, there ain’t no such thing.

  • Honda isn’t an American company. And what can ‘fuel my house in 2012’ won’t fuel this apartment, ever. You think that if they can stop us from having Dish TV they’ll let us have a Home Fueling Station?

    And the only reason there isn’t a hydrogen infrastructure is because they don’t want there to be one. If we had electric cars available to buy, other companies would start providing outlets for them to plug into.

    But we don’t, and of course there aren’t.

  • Oh Man.

    When I first saw this headline I thought they were referring to the old economics chestnut “the best way to start a recession is to tell people there is going to be one” but this is just stupid.

  • The CNBC poll is hardly alone:

    https://customers.reuters.com/wetfetch/index.aspx?CID=02701&doc=PR200802.pdf&base=/community/university/default.aspx
    “Expectations for personal finances as well as for the entire economy have become as pessimistic as ever during the past quarter century”

    http://www.conference-board.org/economics/consumerConfidence.cfm
    “The Consumer Confidence Index continues losing ground and, with the exception of the Iraqi War in 2003, is now at its lowest level in nearly fifteen years […] Consumers’ expectations have also deteriorated significantly and are now at a seventeen-year low”

  • The far right are not out of touch with the concerns of the average American. They just lie

  • Spot on, polaris – I am so sick of hearing otherwise well-intentioned and reasonable folks give dur chimpfurhrer and the criminal cabal behind this administration a “free pass” – that this is all about being “in-touch”, or “competent”.

    NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!,/b>

    They are getting away with destroying our democracy and economy and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity all while LOOTING THE FEDERAL TREASURY and setting the fiscal agenda in this nation for generations to come.

    They are getting exactly what they set out to do, the democrats are fully-enabling them, and some morons want to make this about being “in-touch” or “competent.”

  • Ha, good one, Polaris.

    How much of this have we, the citizen/consumer, brought upon ourselves?

    Nobody forced people to overpay for houses that they knew they couldn’t afford, while they hoped that property values would continue to climb dramatically ever upwards.

    Nobody forced people to use their credit cards as a means to consume without end. And nobody forced people to buy Chinese products over others. Granted, WalMart has done its honest best, but nobody forced people to shop at WalMart…except that so many people shopped at WalMart that local competition went out of business and now some people are forced to shop at WalMart.

    We’re ruled by corporations because we let corporations rule us. We can rationalize that the corporations will be “patriotic”, but it’s obvious that their allegiance is to profit alone. Worse, their allegiance is to short-term profits that look good on quarterly statements and make The Street happy. The Profits of Doom.

    Some have said that the difference between Europe and America is that in the former, the government is afraid of the people, while in the latter the people are afraid of the government. The EU doesn’t have its new REACH laws on toxic chemicals in consumer products because its government is more enlightened; it has those laws because the people demanded them. We don’t demand shit, beyond every day low prices. We swallow the automakers’ line of bull that they can’t reach 35 mpg, a decade from now, even though they reach that milestone today in Europe and Asia.

    “They” have only as much control over us as we let them have…and when the economy heads south we feel marginally better by blaming everyone except ourselves. Perhaps Dr. Thompson was right…”We are a nation of pigs and we’ll get what we deserve.”

  • Big surprise. ANOTHER A-list celebrity steps in front of the camera with a tax deductable contribution. Promoting her latest multi-million dollar project in the very same segment. Using her ‘humanitarian’ image as an excuse for her own incredible greed. As an excuse to concentrate the world’s wealth and resources in her own back yard. As an excuse to live an extravogant, power-hungry, jet-setting, global warming lifestyle. Traveling the world in the name of ‘humanity’. WAKE UP PEOPLE. DREW BARRYMORE IS JUST ANOTHER FILTHY RICH MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HOLLYWOOD HUMANITARIAN. THIS LITTLE PR STUNT WILL MAKE HER EVEN RICHER IN A MATTER OF WEEKS. ITS JUST BUSINESS. Say thet reminds me. Don’t believe one optimistic word from any public figure about the economy or humanity in general. They are all part of the problem. Its like a game of Monopoly. In America, the richest 1% now hold 1/2 OF ALL UNITED STATES WEALTH. Unlike ‘lesser’ estimates, this includes all stocks, bonds, cash, and material assets held by America’s richest 1%. Even that filthy pig Oprah acknowledged that it was at about 50% in 2006. Naturally, she put her own ‘humanitarian’ spin on it. Calling attention to her own ‘good will’. WHAT A DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE SLOB. THE RICHEST 1% HAVE LITERALLY MADE WORLD PROSPERITY ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. Don’t fall for any of their ‘humanitarian’ CRAP. ITS A SHAM. THESE PEOPLE ARE CAUSING THE SAME PROBLEMS THEY PRETEND TO CARE ABOUT. Ask any professor of economics. Money does not grow on trees. The government can’t just print up more on a whim. At any given time, there is a relative limit to the wealth within ANY economy of ANY size. So when too much wealth accumulates at the top, the middle class slip further into debt and the lower class further into poverty. A similar rule applies worldwide. The world’s richest 1% now own over 40% of ALL WORLD WEALTH. This is EVEN AFTER you account for all of this ‘good will’ ‘humanitarian’ BS from celebrities and executives. ITS A SHAM. As they get richer and richer, less wealth is left circulating beneath them. This is the single greatest underlying cause for the current US recession. The middle class can no longer afford to sustain their share of the economy. Their wealth has been gradually transfered to the richest 1%. One way or another, we suffer because of their incredible greed. We are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars. Transfered FROM US TO THEM. Over a period of about 27 years. Thats Reaganomics for you. The wealth does not ‘trickle down’ as we were told it would. It just accumulates at the top. Shrinking the middle class and expanding the lower class. Causing a domino effect of socio-economic problems. But the rich will never stop. They will never settle for a reasonable share of ANYTHING. They will do whatever it takes to get even richer. Leaving even less of the pie for the other 99% of us to share. At the same time, they throw back a few tax deductable crumbs and call themselves ‘humanitarians’. Cashing in on the PR and getting even richer the following year. IT CAN’T WORK THIS WAY. Their bogus efforts to make the world a better place can not possibly succeed. Any ‘humanitarian’ progress made in one area will be lost in another. EVERY SINGLE TIME. IT ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT WORK THIS WAY. This is going to end just like a game of Monopoly. The current US recession will drag on for years and lead into the worst US depression of all time. The richest 1% will live like royalty while the rest of us fight over jobs, food, and gasoline. Crime, poverty, and suicide will skyrocket. So don’t fall for all of this PR CRAP from Hollywood, Pro Sports, and Wall Street PIGS. ITS A SHAM. Remember: They are filthy rich EVEN AFTER their tax deductable contributions. Greedy pigs. Now, we are headed for the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time. SEND A “THANK YOU” NOTE TO YOUR FAVORITE MILLIONAIRE. ITS THEIR FAULT. I’m not discounting other factors like China, sub-prime, or gas prices. But all of those factors combined still pale in comparison to that HUGE transfer of wealth to the rich. Anyway, those other factors are all related and further aggrivated because of GREED. If it weren’t for the OBSCENE distribution of wealth within our country, there never would have been such a market for sub-prime to begin with. Which by the way, was another trick whipped up by greedy bankers and executives. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. The credit industry has been ENDORSED by people like Oprah, Ellen, Dr Phil, and many other celebrities. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. Now, there are commercial ties between nearly every industry and every public figure. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. So don’t fall for their ‘good will’ BS. ITS A LIE. If you fall for it, then you’re a fool. If you see any real difference between the moral character of a celebrity, politician, attorney, or executive, then you’re a fool. WAKE UP PEOPLE. ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. The 1% club will always say or do whatever it takes to get as rich as possible. Without the slightest regard for anything or anyone but themselves. Vioxx. Their idea. Sub-prime. Their idea. NAFTA. Their idea. Outsourcing. Their idea. The commercial lobbyist. Their idea. The multi-million dollar lawsuit. Their idea. $200 cell phone bills. Their idea. $200 basketball shoes. Their idea. $30 late fees. Their idea. $30 NSF fees. Their idea. $20 DVDs. Their idea. Subliminal advertising. Their idea. The MASSIVE campaign to turn every American into a brainwashed credit card, pharmaceutical, love-sick, celebrity junkie. Their idea. All of which concentrate the world’s wealth and resources and wreak havok on society. All of which have been CREATED AND ENDORSED by celebrities, athletes, and executives. IT MAKES THEM RICHER. So don’t fall for their ‘ good will’ ‘humanitarian’ BS. ITS A SHAM. NOTHING BUT TAX DEDUCTABLE PR CRAP. Bottom line: The richest 1% will soon tank the largest economy in the world. It will be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. and thats just the beginning. Greed will eventually tank every major economy in the world. Causing millions to suffer and die. Oprah, Angelina, Brad, Bono, and Bill are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem. EXTREME WEALTH HAS MADE WORLD PROSPERITY ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. WITHOUT WORLD PROSPERITY, THERE WILL NEVER BE WORLD PEACE OR ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE. GREED KILLS. IT WILL BE OUR DOWNFALL. Of course, the rich will throw a fit and call me a madman. Of course, their ignorant fans will do the same. You have to expect that. But I speak the truth. If you don’t believe me, then copy this entry and run it by any professor of economics or socio-economics. Then tell a friend. Call the local radio station. Re-post this entry or put it in your own words. Be one of the first to predict the worst economic and cultural crisis of all time and explain its cause. WE ARE IN BIG TROUBLE.

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