A week ago I was walking through the airport and saw the following headline peering out of a newspaper box: “Employers cut 80,000 jobs in March, unemployment rate jumps.” A quick perusal of the piece revealed the following:
The national unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent ot 5.1 percent, the clearest sign yet that the economy might already be shrinking.
Predictably, the article contained no historical data that might have put the increase in perspective. It could, for example, have mentioned that the 5.1 percent unemployment rate is still well below the 5.8 percent average that prevailed during the 1990s.
Why? Well, as George Will points out, politicians who wish to present themselves as saviors need something to save you from, and the economy is so poorly understood by the public that they and their allies in the “news” media feel safe lying about it.
During presidential elections, when candidates postulate this or that “crisis” for which each is the indispensable and sufficient cure, economic hypochondria is encouraged, so a sense of suffering is rampant.
But we’re already in a recession, aren’t we? Nope.
The standard definition of a recession—-two consecutive quarters of contraction—-means we still are likely several months short of being in one.
But what about the horrifying drop in home prices?
To find such a large decline in a year you must peer back into the mists of prehistory, all the way back to … the 1990s.
Well, don’t forget about the death spiral of the stock market!
The 9.9 percent first quarter decline of the S&P 500 barely ranks among the 40 worst quarterly losses ever in the index’s history.
The last time the establishment media tried this hard to gin up economic anxiety was in the Fall of 1992, when they repeated Bill Clinton’s lie that the economy was in “the worst shape since the Great Depression.” Here’s a table showing actual recessions:
You will notice the conspicuous absence of a recession during the Fall of 1992. One could hardly ask for more convincing proof that the establishment media are not to be trusted where the economy is concerned.
As to the present, the economy is obviously going through a cyclical downturn, but it isn’t in crisis. Nonetheless, we can expect more BS from the media as the election draws nigh.
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