Tale of Two Recessions - continued
In my last post, I contrasted the robust business recovery we saw out of the last deep recession we had (beginning in July '81) compared to the rather tepid one we're seeing now (and which may not even be a true recovery, for all we know). Another contrast is in how these recessions have been perceived.
I searched the New York Times for articles with the words 'Unemployment' and 'Hardship' to find articles that might be addressing the impact of the economy on people's lives. Here's what I found:
July 1981 - June 1983: 120 articles
Dec 2007 - November 2009: 56 articles
Why would this be? Why would the Times have been more interested in covering hard times back in the early 80's than they are today. I'm not sure that the answer is as simple as Reagan being president then. This bears closer scrutiny.
On a related note, Andrew Gelman discusses the relative severity of the two recessions, taking into account age of the population.
I searched the New York Times for articles with the words 'Unemployment' and 'Hardship' to find articles that might be addressing the impact of the economy on people's lives. Here's what I found:
July 1981 - June 1983: 120 articles
Dec 2007 - November 2009: 56 articles
Why would this be? Why would the Times have been more interested in covering hard times back in the early 80's than they are today. I'm not sure that the answer is as simple as Reagan being president then. This bears closer scrutiny.
On a related note, Andrew Gelman discusses the relative severity of the two recessions, taking into account age of the population.
posted by ziel | 12/07/2009 07:53:00 AM
3 Comments:
The media doesn't want to discuss this economic calamity, because then they would have to explore the causes for it; namely, the financialization of our economy, accompanied by the sytematic displacement of much of our workforce through the mass importation of cheap labor/exportation of middle-class jobs which has brought this about.
The media can't report critically on those policies, because they've been cheerleaders for them from the beginning.
-what uwi said......exactly. Im glad a few others feel like I do about this.
We have done everything possible to unemploy males (especially white ones) in particular. We gave construction to illegals at sub-market wages, imported tech workers to 'H1B' the wages down to unacceptable levels, we shipped out manufacturing, we have implemented females to HR directors at company after company who in turn hire every female for every available position that comes up, no matter how poorly qualified they are, we have expanded guv'ment jobs out the wazoo which are typically given to minorities and women.
Creating new wealth now almost completely is reliant on money being borrowed from banks to start any new project, then the said bank has to borrow more money from the FED, getting us into even more debt. Its as if we are a giant drug addict addicted to foreign bond-buyers who cannot create any value without borrowing more money. Its a pickle for sure.
What Anonymous anonymously said. They do push women like crazy in our economy nowadays. 80% of those laidoff in the economy the last 2 years have been men but the media is silent about that too.
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