Who's the Sheep??

I try to avoid commenting on non-theologically significant things (is that a category?) here, but this one just irritates me and I have to vent it. So the conventional wisdom today is that we in America are in an economic crisis, right? That the dreaded "recession" monster is at our throats. People are in dire straits financially left and right, losing their jobs, losing their homes, can't afford medical care or gas or food or Milk Bones for Fido. At least, to listen to the mantra of the mainstream media that would be the case.

So then read this article that attempts to bring a few real facts to the table. For example, here are a few quotes:

• The average unemployment rate during President Clinton was 5.2 percent. The average under President George W. Bush is just slightly below 5.2. The current unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, almost half a percentage point lower than these averages.
• The average inflation rate under Clinton was 2.6 percent, under Bush it is 2.7 percent. Indeed, one has to go back to the Kennedy administration to find a lower average rate. True the inflation rate over the last year has gone up to 4 percent, but that is still lower than the average inflation rate under all the presidents from Nixon through Bush’s father.
• Gas prices are indeed up 33 percent over the last year, but to get an average of 4 percent means that lots of other prices must have stayed the same or gone down. On other fronts, seasonally adjusted civilian employment is 650,000 people greater than it was a year ago. Personal income grew at a strong half of one percent in just February.

So by every measure that means anything, the American economy today is in better shape than it's been for years. Those great days of supposed prosperity under Clinton turn out to be not so great. But then, the mainstream media wasn't beating the economic crisis drum when wild Willie was in the Oval office, were they?

As far as the term "recession" goes, here's some interesting info.

...last week, Barack Obama proclaimed “As most experts know, our economy is in a recession.” Hillary Clinton made similar statements last fall. Yet, as any economist knows, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth, and we haven’t even had one single quarter of negative growth reported. The economy slowed down significantly during the end of last year, but that was after a sizzling annual GDP growth rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter.

Don't you get tired of being basically lied to by the media, political hacks, pundits and the like? It seems more and more that we Americans are just a bunch of sheep, blindly being led around by whatever fills the TV screens and captures our attention for a few minutes. We don't think and question, we just accept. This is the only way you can reconcile the fact that the majority of people in the US think the economy is in a crisis and getting worse, but that their personal financial well-being is very good. If I'm doing good, but the news guys keep telling me we're all going broke, then I guess it must be all those other people out there. Hmmm...

And the liberals say that we Christians are the ones that are easily led. Not so much, looks like to me.