Every day now, there’s some news story about the economy in which some aspect of the current crisis exceeds analysts’ expectations. Yesterday it was “Consumer spending plummets twice as much as expected”; today it’s “Jobless claims up more than expected.” Have you noticed this?
This has been going on for months now, and it occurs to me that the analysts who form these expectations must be pretty stupid. You’d think they’d get it right, or overestimate it, at least a couple of times over a period of months. What do these people get paid to do?
Of course, I don’t actually think that’s the problem. This is just yet another instance of irresponsible reporting by the media. Whether unemployment is up 0.1% or 75%, you can truthfully claim that it’s “more than expected by analysts” or even “much more than expected by analysts.” You’re not saying which analysts, after all. There are plenty of respectable people saying we’re all going to be standing in bread lines in six months, and I don’t see any news articles about how we’re doing better than they expect.
So what we have here is the fine American news media hammering into our heads, on a daily basis, the idea that things are getting worse even more than we expect. No matter how fast we adjust our expectations! It’s spiraling out of control! It’s time to crack open your neighbor’s head and feast on the goo inside!
I’m not arguing for unchecked optimism, but a little realism would be nice now and again.
One Comment
i wonder is this just stupidity or a clever reporting tactic used to manipulate the public into thinking things are going bad/better/worse than they should be
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