We have always been at war with Eastasia. ---Ministry of Truth, 1984.
Falling GDP is good. It has always been good. And now that GDP has fallen in the first quarter and economic prospects don't look good for the near future, Politico's contributing editor, Zachary Karabell has discovered that falling GDP is good. In fact the title of this directive issued from the Politico Ministry of Truth flat out tells us that GDP’s Going Down? That’s Good!
It would seem that the conversation at Politico went something like this: "Hey, we need to hit the Obama administration for the havoc its policies have wreaked on the middle class. But we can't go after them too hard, because that might burn some bridges, and we'll lose our stenographer — er, journalistic — access. So we need to use someone sympathetic to Democrats who will know how not to go over the line."
They chose contributing editor Zachary Karabell, who during most of his writeup did a presentable job of being not too critical while posing as an objective observer — that is, until his final four paragraphs.
As of late, the networks just can't get enough of bad housing news, seizing each opportunity to make a point how bad the American economy is.
Each of the network news broadcasts on May 27 - ABC, CBS and NBC - took the news that home prices fell 14 percent in the first quarter of 2008, despite the news that new home sales rose an unexpected 3.3 percent in April from March, to portray the economy in a very grim light.
"The downward slide for home prices is only picking up speed," CBS correspondent Anthony Mason said on the May 27 "Evening News." "The 14 percent plunge nationally was led by Las Vegas, where prices have fallen more than 25 percent over the past year. Miami is down more than 24 percent, Phoenix - 23 percent. Among the 20 major cities surveyed, only Charlotte showed a meager gain and analysts can't see a bottom yet."