"The Economy" Versus Your Money

An astoundingly blinkered New York Times article on why Republican candidates aren't getting more of a boost from "glowing economic statistics" takes an astounding thirty paragraphs (admittedly, many of them short) to consider the possibility that "Rather than celebrate the stock market’s gains and the overall growth of the economy, many voters are worried about the wages of ordinary workers, which have just started to improve after several years of falling short or barely keeping up with inflation."

Yes, yes, shocking but true -- typical people's perceptions of the economy are driven more by the well-being of typical people than on aggregate macroeconomic indicators. Who'd a thunk it?

Comments

How many Democrats voted for the bankruptcy bill again - 0? Or no?

Posted by Linus | October 24, 2006 1:43 AM

odd, that.

Posted by josh | October 24, 2006 2:36 AM

Not "of typical people" - of their own pocketbooks.

Posted by FMguru | October 24, 2006 2:50 AM

The average 401k balance is on the order of $40,000, and not all of it invested in common stocks. The 3% rise in the Dow over six years hardly qualifies as something to get euphoric about.

Posted by bob h | October 24, 2006 7:36 AM

Bush likely wonders where's the resulting joy seeing as how he's vastly enriched the bottom line for 1% of the population. He actually expects the remaining 99% to feel good that they too could someday be in the same boat. Talk about blinkered.

Posted by steve duncan | October 24, 2006 7:50 AM

So why do you think this sort of thing happens?
* Is there a high level of economic illiteracy among journalists?
* Do they understand the abstract economic theory but not how it impacts regular folks?
* Is there a lack of quotable sources who can address the issue?

You're absolutely right to criticize this astonishingly bad writing. But I also wonder about its cause so that we can try and fix it.

Posted by b | October 24, 2006 8:10 AM

i think this just highlights that "economic reporting" at most major american newspapers (the times and the post the most egregious of which) is a decided misnomer.

i think i heard npr parroting this this morning. sigh...

Posted by looj | October 24, 2006 9:15 AM

I wonder who's actually making money.

The DJIA is up a bit in nominal dollars since Jan 2001, but is down quite a bit in constant dollars.

The NASDAQ is waaaay off in every metric.

Corporations make big profits but the profits don't impact share price? How does that work? Is it all going to pay for CEOs salaries?

Who is making money out of this economy? Is it all being sent to our Chinese and Japanese landlords?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 24, 2006 9:21 AM

"Who is making money out of this economy?"

You've seen the numbers that the top 10% are distancing themselves from the rest, the top 1% from them, the top .1% from them,... At those rarified levels, you're talking about fairly small numbers of people - tens of thousands. Lots are CEO's, some top-level big law partners, analagous medical specialists, professional athletes, top entertainers,... But clearly there aren't that many pro atheletes and entertainers making millions per year. The breakdown of the rest, and the explanation why, is the $64000 question.

Posted by ptm | October 24, 2006 9:55 AM

Fact is, msm journalists tend to be close to the top of the income ladder. They have good health plans, good pensions, and no recent personal experience of how hard it is to make ends meet when the income is rising faster than the outgo. So they really don't share the gut feeling that most of us have that something's wrong -- and they retreat to what they do know: their own investments are doing fine, they feel pretty secure, and what the hell is wrong with the rest of us?

Posted by PapaOscar | October 24, 2006 10:12 AM

Oops -- outgo rising faster than the income...

Posted by PapaOscar | October 24, 2006 10:13 AM

ptm, a lot of the explanation for the success of the upper one-tenth-of-one-percent is that oligopoly reinforces itself: ceo salaries, for example, are set by comp committees of boards that include other ceos (and former ceos)....

Posted by howard | October 24, 2006 11:42 AM

I'm guessing that PapaOscar has neither worked for the media nor known many people who have. Maybe people like Katie Couric are at the top of the income ladder, but the average newspaper grunt can't even see the top of that ladder, let alone reach it. Median salary at a mid-sized daily is around $40K a year. And that's if you're lucky enough to have a job: Virtually every newspaper is laying off staff and/or cutting back benefits.

Journalists are a lot of things. Rich ain't one of them.

Posted by Fred App | October 24, 2006 12:14 PM

Actually, I worked for a national media company for ten years as a reporter and editor. That's where I got more experience than I wanted with the masters of the universe who cover national politics for national newspapers and magazines. By the time they got to their exalted positions, they tended to be much more comfortable with the people they covered (and the people who fund the people they covered) than they were with the rest of the working world, including the grunts in the newsroom.

In fact, that seemed to be a requirement for the job.

Posted by PapaO | October 24, 2006 1:13 PM

I'd say thatit's the editors, particularly the senior editors, and the publishers. Nothing that a journalist writes gets into print, unless an editor approves it. I'm guessing here, but I'll bet that most journalists figure out which slants get printed, and which don't; the one who don't figure that out are known as ex-journalists.

Posted by Barry | October 24, 2006 2:46 PM

While we're on the topic of economic reporting, don't forget about the Washington Post's endorsement of Jim Webb. It included this slap: "His diagnosis of America's widening disparities in wealth and income is on the mark, but his fuzzy-headed attacks on free trade are the wrong prescription."

It's always amusing to see media elites equate opposition to free trade with ignorance.

Their arrogance will be their downfall.

Posted by b | October 24, 2006 4:01 PM

anent b's recent comment

I wonder where the Washington Post gets its examples of Free Trade countries. Does even Singapore practice Free Trade? The US doesn't. Not even vaguely. The Washington Post has tacitly agreed to perpetuate the code word version of Free Trade which is destroying American jobs.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 24, 2006 4:34 PM

How many Democrats voted for the bankruptcy bill again - 0? Or no?

In the Senate:
100% of Republicans voted for it.
~60% of Democrats voted against it.

In the House:
100% of Republicans voted for it.
~60% of Democrates voted against it.

The Democrats may not be perfect. But at least they're not unanimous in supporting these bills, and more importantly, if they'd been in charge this bill would never have seen the light of day.

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