On Friday the media was in a complete frenzy to get Sarah Palin, enlisting a cast of thousands to scour the 24,000 pages of e-mails released by the State of Alaska.
As just about everyone now acknowledges, the major networks and print newspapers never devoted a fraction of the effort towards important stories like the unemployment rate and the reality that millions of people are so dejected that they have left the labor force.
Given that the Palin email story was a bust and does not help Democrats, it is not surprising to see that the media participation rate in the story has fallen dramatically, as evidenced by this graph reflecting the Palin Email Frenzy Media Participation Rate:
It's a shame that the media is losing interest in such an important story, but it's not surprising. Everyone seems to be losing hope these days.
Rachel Maddow vs. John McCain: Economy fundamentally strong Tube. Duration : 9.30 Mins.
The financial crisis on Wall Street is more than a cyclic correction brought on by a mismanaged business cycle. It 'a symbol of a problem on the basis of the right wing economic philosophy, the conventional wisdom during the Bush years has been - and would continue in a McCain presidency. The fanatics of the free "free market" put aside the fundamental lesson that the world has learned during the Great Depression: left to themselves do not, unregulated financial markets, thisnecessarily function for society as a whole - or, in the end, even many individual market participants. For many years after the global economic crisis, most mortgages from banks and savings have been made available. Traditionally, these institutions originate their own loans, to assess risks, and a relationship with the borrower. It was in the interest of the institution to make loans - which is how he made money. But there was also interest in the institution to ensurethat the borrower can repay the loan because he had lent her money. Over the last thirty years, the mortgage market has changed radically. Now most of the loans by brokers or mortgage lenders, the "charge" their money with their payments and were often large lending institutions not regulated. Once these loans, which are then packaged and sold as securities through the secondary mortgage market. Mortgage originators had every reason to make all loans...
The S&P Case-Shiller home price data for the first quarter of 2011 are so dreadful that nearly everyone agrees that the U.S. housing market is in the midst of a “double dip.” Curiously absent from many of these analyses is the role played by the federal government in helping to engineer a double-dip with its ill-devised homebuyer tax credit. Originally aimed only at first-time homebuyers and set to expire at the end of November 2009, the tax credit was later extended through the end of June 2010 and expanded to all homebuyers below certain income levels. The extension and expansion was attributed to the early “success” of the program, evidence for which consisted of nothing more than households’ willingness to accept free money from the government.
And these are the people who want to run the health care system. What possibly could go wrong?
Additional point, new Obama campaign slogan:
"Yes you can accept free money from the government."
