Posts Tagged ‘Recession’
Courtesy of Gawker
We at USDemocrazy are pretty big fans of the news. That’s why, when 2009’s Pulitzer Prize winners were announced on Monday, we were on the edge of our seats. (OK, well, not literally because there was this baseball game on, and we were pretty into that, then we had to take a nap, and… well, nevermind.)
But we did hear that this year was the first time the Prize committee considered entries from online-only news sources, which is great because we may have a shot at one next year! (Don’t you think??) But enough about us… Turns out that the awards were announced amid a swirl of turmoil in the world of print media.
The news about newspapers is not good. They are laying off writers and editors, selling sections of the paper, shrinking (literally… newspapers are getting smaller), and posting ridiculous losses. Most people are getting more and more of their news online, which present print papers with a positively puzzling predicament: How to make money in this funky new media landscape?
The Pulitzer Prize, which awards great work in journalism, literature, photography, and music, reminded us all of the media sob story, especially when one Prize went to writers who had been laid off.
A story on NPR’s Morning Edition reminds of the stress the newspaper industry is under, due to it not making money and there being a low demand for old-fashioned ink-on-your-fingers black-and-white-and-read-all-over papers, even noticing that the New York Times celebrated its five wins in a news room that no longer belongs to them.
We at USDemocrazy, appreciators of very fine journalistic talent, congratulate all of the Pulitzer winners and are proposing that they all pool together their prize money to save the newspaper industry…
Oh, it’ll take like, billions of dollars you say? Nevermind. Maybe they should just keep the money to pay off their mortgages!
Where do you all see the future of print media? Is there a future at all? While you guys figure that out, we’ll be working on our Pulitzer Prize-winning piece for next year.
Obama is back with another message of hope (not that we at USDemocrazy are surprised). This offer of hope is directed towards America’s economy.
In a speech to Georgetown University, Obama said that the economy is kinda sorta maybe beginning to level out. (We’re out of the fire, back into the frying pan.)
A Huffington Post blog has an interesting (albeit opinionated) breakdown of the speech.
Whether or not we are on the road to recovery, things today are not always sunny. Retail sales dropped in March, signaling that consumers have not come out from under their rocks yet.
As Obama said, there will be “more job loss, more foreclosures, and more pain before it ends,” so tighten your belts (and wallets) and hang on. Remember to turn to USDemocrazy, not for answers, but for company (you’re not the only one panicking!) .
Remember the good old days ? By that we, US Democrazy, mean the good ole days of the Great Depression. Well, not “great” for anyone (except shanty contractors and bindle factories), but you get the idea.
So… how does this new-fangled economic turmoil stand up to the Big Bozo of Financial Fiascoes?
Poorly. But before y’all get up in arms about how bad it is now, let’s compare some numbers.
Currently unemployment is around 8.1%. If you add in people who are working part time but want to work full time you get about 14.8%.
This seems bad until you compare it to the 29% unemployment rate in 1932. Based on this factor alone the current hiccup does not seem so bad.
BUT WAIT! There are some nasty similarities between our financial crunch and the Greatest of all Depressions.
Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, (who is also a Great Authority on the Great Depression) provided some valuable insights.
In her words “the worldwide nature of the decline” today is similar to the Great Depression.
But don’t panic; Romer points out people during the Great Depression had “painfully few of the social safety nets that today help families.” Phew! But painfully few still sounds kind of painful.
So put a smile on! With a little luck (okay… maybe a lot of luck) we won’t have any stories for our children about the good ole Great Depression of ’09.
Well at least I’m still rich… World’s richest lose billions!
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Man “falls” in Niagara.
Does anybody have any Old Bay? Giant crabs are here to stay!
… but we at USDemocrazy are fairly certain the that does not apply to our US economy.
A few weeks ago, we posted a blog that basically said: if you talk about too much about recession, you could end up with a depression . Well, apparently no one has learned their lesson!
This article in the New York Times tells us how upset we should be about the loss of our jobs. And this article from the Wall Street Journal is especially nice and perky. It gives us the odds of the United States stumbling into a deep dark depression!
We at USDemocrazy kinda prefer stories like NPR’s story on “Laid Off Camp”. This is about unemployed or furloughed people who seek out others in the same bind. One guy said he just wants to meet someone who can go to museums in the middle of the day with him. The Laid Off Camp counselors say that you should embrace unemployment, not stress about it! If you’re going to be out of work… be happy out of work.
In these tough times stories of optimism are great (and hard) to find. As all of us who have been jobless know… being happy and unemployed is easier said than done!
And words will hurt the economy…
Let’s talk for a minute about the recession… NO, LET’S NOT! That’s because all this talk of the economics could be damaging to your health!!! (Financial health, that is…)
The crack team at USDemocrazy has noticed that any time an Obama adminstration official starts to talk economics… the stock market screams, runs and hides!
Now the brainiacs at the New York Times have started to wonder if all this talk of America launching into a depression is going to, well, launch America into a depression. Same with the folks at New York Magazine who have dubbed the US economy’s weakened state “The Greatest Depression.” Newsweek is fielding questions on whether or not we are in a depression, and Google yields 68.5 million hits when you type in “Are we in a depression?”
There’s an old saying that goes, the economy is in recession when your neighbor loses his job, but there’s a depression on when you lose your job. Well, maybe if we all hush up about this lousy depression, maybe the economy will just stay in a lousy recession instead.
Okay… maybe this isn’t a good strategy. We at USDemocrazy think it is important to discuss issues like recessions and depressions… (But please don’t blame us if the market starts to fall!)
Photo courtesy New York Magazine
