"Titillating Bleak Media Reports on the State of the Economic Collapse"
If America's economic landscape seems suddenly alien and hostile to many citizens, there is good reason: they have never seen anything like it. Nothing in memory has prepared consumers for such turbulent, epochal change, the sort of upheaval that happens once in 50 years. Even the economists do not have a name for the present condition, though one has described it as "suspended animation" and "never-never land."
The outward sign of the change is an economy that stubbornly refuses to recover from the recession. The current slump already ranks as the longest period of sustained weakness since the Great Depression. That was the last time the economy staggered under as many "structural" burdens, as opposed to the familiar "cyclical" problems that create temporary recessions once or twice a decade. The structural faults represent once-in-a-lifetime dislocations that will take years to work out.
Among them: the job drought, the debt hangover, the banking crisis, the real estate depression, the health-care cost explosion and the runaway federal deficit. "This is a sick economy that won't respond to traditional remedies," said Bank of New York Mellon economist Norman Robertson. "There's going to be a lot of trauma before it's over."
~Time Magazine cover story "The Long Haul" (click to see the date of the article, excerpts above were modified slightly).
(Originally posted on June 14, 2009.)
Here's a previous CD post about "pessimism porn" and the "titillating bleak media reports on the state of the economic collapse."
6 Comments:
The Time / Newsweek groups have been running the end of free markets theme for some time. I saw one cover about how unemployment was going above 10% and staying there for years. They went on to praise the luck of Obama having chose Larry Summers since he did his economic thesis on why free markets can't provide employment. America would be well on it's way to recovery if there were fiscal conservatives running government.
The sad thing is I was at a historical function last night with some KY and OH state reps and they said the Republican party has no national leadership. If the party wins a majority in either house in 2010, it will be a rejection of the Democrats and nothing the Republicans have to offer.
That was the last time the economy staggered under as many "structural" burdens, as opposed to the familiar "cyclical" problems that create temporary recessions once or twice a decade.
The left has been dragged kicking and screaming through the almost 30 years of prosperity ushered in by the policies of Ronald Reagan. During that time they have done everything that they could to increase taxes, increase regulation, restrict access to domestic energy and undermine the free market. It looks as if they have finally succeeded.
This is the world they wanted. Slower economic growth, higher energy prices, less consumption. The unemployment rates we are currently experiencing are common in Europe during the best of times. Get used to it. You voted for change and here it is.
The minute that I saw the sanguine economic commentary I thought you were quoting from Time Ragazine during the 1992 recession.
Sooner or later the economy will return to some semblance of growth, unemployment will decline, and the wrong people (read: Democrats) will take credit.
I am hoping that it is sooner rather than later, but the more that BHO pays for the Democrat's folly the better.
They overtook Congress in 2006 and ushered in a reign of terror. And it is not as if the Republicans did anything to stop it.
Where is the next Reagan when you need him? (or her?)
longest period of sustained weakness since the Great Depression
What happened to the 1970s?
I saw one cover about how unemployment was going above 10% and staying there for years.
I saw that too. I saw it as a propaganda piece for the Democrats. By proclaiming 10+% unemployment the new normal, it prepares us in advance for the failure of Democrat economic policies.
What strikes me as odd is the idea that anyone would pay money or waste time reading either Time or Newsweek...
I thought both rags lost whatever credibility they may have had back in '68...
This article was a de-facto ad for Clinton during the 1992 election against Bush I. The whole bleak media report was written specifically to undermine Bush I and reinforce the message of the Clinton campaign. With that context, the article makes alot more sense.
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