Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on February 23, 2009, 09:12:33 am
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http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/23/poll.obama.media/index.html
To quote the article:
The survey also says that three out of four Americans are angry about the way things are going in the country. But three out of four questioned say that things are going well for them personally.
That's why I never trust statistics.
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:lol:
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WTF @ those statistics.
Silly America. Maybe it's about time Canada annexed a b!tch.
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Things are going well for me now, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to think the country needs help.
The fact that apparently 1/4 of the population doesn't think things are going well for them IS why I don't like the way things are going for the country.
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Because, if anything, it's an indication of how the 'Doom and Gloom' attitude of the Media effects people's thinking. 'I'm fine, but I see such terrible things in the News and it makes me worry about the country in general', I can almost see people thinking that when asked this question.
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I'm failing to see how looking past your own life and being concerned about the country and economy, or... scarily enough... fellow citizens is a bad thing?
If the media wasn't reporting doom and gloom and Americans just went on buying SUVs and ipods on credit while everyone else is losing their jobs and homes, people would call us narrow minded and selfish (and rightfully so).
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It's not about buying SUV's and IPods etc, it's about much larger things than that, this is exactly what I mean. Whilst it's true that the exponential increase in technology was causing problems, the real problems were caused by institutions, not by items.
The whole problem is the fact that it IS about people not thinking of their fellow citizens, but instead, simply assuming everything they heard from the news is true and accurate, that the US is going to Hell in a Handbasket, which isn't actually true, a recession is bad, but America is far better equipped to survive it than most countries, and the fact is that people wouldn't buy those IPods and SUV's because they wouldn't have the money, so the problem would fix itself in that particular aspect. Yes, people will lose their jobs etc, but that goes on in the middle of a Boom as well, but whilst financially things are bad, I think 'being fearful' of the future is totally counter-productive especially when you compare the personal situations to the percieved national one.
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So Americans understand that the county's welfare extends past their own homes. What's wrong with this? It's not like the current economic and political situations are anything to be pleased with.
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Actually, there's quite a few things to be pleased with, but they don't make the headlines as often, that's the entire point. Yes, there's bad stuff going down, but you have to look a lot harder to find the good stuff, not because it's exactly hard to find, but because it doesn't make good headlines.
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It's not about buying SUV's and IPods etc, it's about much larger things than that, this is exactly what I mean. Whilst it's true that the exponential increase in technology was causing problems, the real problems were caused by institutions, not by items.
The whole problem is the fact that it IS about people not thinking of their fellow citizens, but instead, simply assuming everything they heard from the news is true and accurate, that the US is going to Hell in a Handbasket, which isn't actually true, a recession is bad, but America is far better equipped to survive it than most countries, and the fact is that people wouldn't buy those IPods and SUV's because they wouldn't have the money, so the problem would fix itself in that particular aspect. Yes, people will lose their jobs etc, but that goes on in the middle of a Boom as well, but whilst financially things are bad, I think 'being fearful' of the future is totally counter-productive especially when you compare the personal situations to the percieved national one.
Let's count
Recession
Job Loss
Falling housing prices
2 wars
Failing banks
Failing auto industry
Possible nationalized banks
add onto that not so glamorous troubles like
outdated electrical grids
outdated telephone and internet lines
bridges, roads and highways that need maintenance
public schools is disarray almost everywhere
stalled wages
poor health care management overall
The fact that America is "better equipped" is all the more reason to be concerned. People have spent too long thinking "we're America, we'll be fine" That continued thinking will keep leading us down the same path.
What do you want the news to report on? How awesome it is that my bills are paid this month?
"In national news... two more banks fai... er... the auto industry requested 20b in.... um.... troop levels are increasing in Afgha.... huh...."
"In local news, most homeowners aren't in forclosure. Now let's check out last night's American Idol!"
What exactly needs to happen before it's cool for us to be worried about our nation?
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Actually, there's quite a few things to be pleased with, but they don't make the headlines as often, that's the entire point. Yes, there's bad stuff going down, but you have to look a lot harder to find the good stuff, not because it's exactly hard to find, but because it doesn't make good headlines.
Welcome back to... forever?
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More like 'Welcome to....always'. People always worry about the future, and even 20 years ago, people were saying 'Well, we're ok now, but there's trouble ahead, you just have to read the News', 20 years later and they are saying the exact same thing.
There are always problems going on, there are always Wars, and Financial Troubles and Services going out of date, the news is more widely broadcast now, thanks to the Internet etc, but to be honest, the world isn't getting worse, we're just getting more information about what it's always been like.
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Actually, there's quite a few things to be pleased with, but they don't make the headlines as often, that's the entire point. Yes, there's bad stuff going down, but you have to look a lot harder to find the good stuff, not because it's exactly hard to find, but because it doesn't make good headlines.
Are you trying to say that Americans should try and make themselves happy by only looking at the good things? Even if all I have to go on is personal experience, things certainly aren't great. Gas prices are going back up, the lunch prices at school have literally tripled since I was a Freshmen, pretty much every extra-curricular activity/club I'm in at school stopped getting money from the school, my dad has had about 3 different jobs within the past 3 years... The list goes on. Sure, most of these are pretty menial, but I doubt that they're the only bad things going on.
But anyway, what exactly is going well in America that isn't making the news? I've noticed how everyone has neglected to say anything specific about it.
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More like 'Welcome to....always'. People always worry about the future, and even 20 years ago, people were saying 'Well, we're ok now, but there's trouble ahead, you just have to read the News', 20 years later and they are saying the exact same thing.
There are always problems going on, there are always Wars, and Financial Troubles and Services going out of date, the news is more widely broadcast now, thanks to the Internet etc, but to be honest, the world isn't getting worse, we're just getting more information about what it's always been like.
Who said it was worse?
Saying "They didn't know as much about stuff before, so they shouldn't be more worried about it now" is silly.
These are real problems that directly affect these people. Yes, they should be concerned about it.
I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make. People should place less emphasis on national troubles because they've become more visible?
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No, I didn't say anything of the sort, the increase of awareness is good, but the attitude of 'we're doomed' because of it is not., and that seems to be a growing prevalent opinion among a large number of people, that, even though they are managing ok, 'hard times are just around the corner'. Besides, this isn't simply a question of 'fear' it's a question of anger, anger at what, at whom, why?
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No, I didn't say anything of the sort, the increase of awareness is good, but the attitude of 'we're doomed' because of it is not., and that seems to be a growing prevalent opinion among a large number of people, that, even though they are managing ok, 'hard times are just around the corner'. Besides, this isn't simply a question of 'fear' it's a question of anger, anger at what, at whom, why?
It's not a bad attitude if people are trying to do something to fix what's causing the attitude.
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No, I didn't say anything of the sort, the increase of awareness is good, but the attitude of 'we're doomed' because of it is not., and that seems to be a growing prevalent opinion among a large number of people, that, even though they are managing ok, 'hard times are just around the corner'. Besides, this isn't simply a question of 'fear' it's a question of anger, anger at what, at whom, why?
If we continue to let things keep slipping down then yes, we are pretty well doomed.
If we aren't doomed if we don't fix the problems, why are we fixing them?
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Besides, this isn't simply a question of 'fear' it's a question of anger, anger at what, at whom, why?
Government officials, for not watching enough to catch these things before they become problems
Business officials, for looking for more money regardless of what it did to anyone, or their companies
Me, for not watching both of these groups more closely.
*awaits rebuttal on businessmen point*
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No, I didn't say anything of the sort, the increase of awareness is good, but the attitude of 'we're doomed' because of it is not., and that seems to be a growing prevalent opinion among a large number of people, that, even though they are managing ok, 'hard times are just around the corner'. Besides, this isn't simply a question of 'fear' it's a question of anger, anger at what, at whom, why?
It's not a bad attitude if people are trying to do something to fix what's causing the attitude.
The people who are doing the fixing are the same people that are doing the angry, they're all Americans from all walks of life.
If we continue to let things keep slipping down then yes, we are pretty well doomed.
If we aren't doomed if we don't fix the problems, why are we fixing them?
You aren;t doomed because you are/i] fixing the problems, to a degree, but they'll never go away, everyone seems to expect some kind of Shangri-La one day where someone will turn round and say 'Right, that's the world fixed.', not going to happen.
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Government officials, for not watching enough to catch these things before they become problems
Business officials, for looking for more money regardless of what it did to anyone, or their companies
Me, for not watching both of these groups more closely.
*awaits rebuttal on businessmen point*
Well, I won't rebut you over the businessman point, but I will say that the Politicians themselves are probably pointless to get angry at, these days, they are mostly talking heads for corporate interests, however, the ultimate blame does lay with, as you say, the people who were willing to turn a blind eye for so long, i.e. The public, while everything was gravy, no-one asked where the gravy was coming from.
It's not even confined to the US alone, the world is suffering, so blaming anything local to the US may well be pointless in the first place. I suppose if there's any anger to go round, it would be at corporations who were struggling, but deliberately hid the fact from involved parties. But the warning signs were there for those who wanted to look.
Basically, the bottom line is, help those who need help, but don't get angry about what might happen to you, because it equally might not, if people fear the future, then prepare for it, but going round blaming faceless individuals in Washington or Corporate boardrooms for a problem such as this is only really covering half the bases.
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You aren't doomed because you are fixing the problems, to a degree, but they'll never go away, everyone seems to expect some kind of Shangri-La one day where someone will turn round and say 'Right, that's the world fixed.', not going to happen.
We ARE fixing the problem because they ARE on the news all the time. If they weren't, we wouldn't care. If the news didn't report bad news, how would we find out about them?
This reminds me of something someone once said that's kinda crude. "Why bother wiping your ass, you'll just have to go to the bathroom again"? He was kidding of course but the point remains. Just because there will always be problems doesn't mean we shouldn't work on fixing them.
Complacency is the biggest problem, not alarmist attitudes. People aren't mobbing stores for canned goods or loading up on shotgun shells.
These are serious problems that CAN ruin a country. The fact that people are paying more attention to it than Lost or Nancy Grace is not a bad thing.
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I've already said increased awareness is good, but walking around being 'angry' when these people don't even know why, or who at isn't going to solve the problem.
It doesn't take people looting stores to show signs of panic, like the depression itself, it's easy to ignore the warning signs right up to the point you hear glass breaking.
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Well, I won't rebut you over the businessman point, but I will say that the Politicians themselves are probably pointless to get angry at, these days, they are mostly talking heads for corporate interests, however, the ultimate blame does lay with, as you say, the people who were willing to turn a blind eye for so long, i.e. The public, while everything was gravy, no-one asked where the gravy was coming from.
So the people elected to help us are helping the people who screw us over and we haven't been watching, and you think we're... overreacting? We're putting too much gloom and doom talk about how the people aren't the primary concern of the country anymore, that corporations are?
It's not even confined to the US alone, the world is suffering, so blaming anything local to the US may well be pointless in the first place. I suppose if there's any anger to go round, it would be at corporations who were struggling, but deliberately hid the fact from involved parties. But the warning signs were there for those who wanted to look.
Yes, no one was paying attention. People won't pay attention to it unless they think it's serious. Severe economic troubles that could alter how this country even exists is serious. Candy coating it so it isn't doom and gloom won't fix anything.
Basically, the bottom line is, help those who need help, but don't get angry about what might happen to you, because it equally might not, if people fear the future, then prepare for it, but going round blaming faceless individuals in Washington or Corporate boardrooms for a problem such as this is only really covering half the bases.
This makes... almost no sense. So I'll try to break it down.
"Help those who need help"
ok
"but don't get angry about what might happen to you, because it equally might not, if people fear the future, then prepare for it"
What might happen to me and why am I angry about it? I'm not angry about what might happen to me, I'm angry about what IS happening to me. Just because I didn't personally lose my home or my job doesn't mean this trouble hasn't affected me. And just because I am able to survive doesn't mean I should be happy about it. The only reason people are preparing for it is because we are angry.
What am I supposed to do? Watch banks fail and my tax money get shelled out to industries, be mad for like a day, wait for those in charge to go "oh ok, you're mad so we'll fix it" and then go back to happy fun time? We should be angry until they are fixed.
Yes, this means we will almost always be angry about something. For someone who just mentioned how delusional it was for us to think of the world as becoming Shangra La, you're missing the point.
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I've already said increased awareness is good, but walking around being 'angry' when these people don't even know why, or who at isn't going to solve the problem.
It doesn't take people looting stores to show signs of panic, like the depression itself, it's easy to ignore the warning signs right up to the point you hear glass breaking.
So, tell them who to be angry at, problem solved. Or were you trying to hint they shouldn't be angry at a possible collapse of the system?
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Nearly, personally I'd say that 3/4 of US Citizens walking around being angry without anywhere to direct that anger, and convincing themselves that the system is going to fall is actually highly likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, pessimism about a systemmic problem is almost as deadly as the problem itself.
Take it from me, I'm in the UK, and no-one does pessimism like a Brit ;)
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Nearly, personally I'd say that 3/4 of US Citizens walking around being angry without anywhere to direct that anger, and convincing themselves that the system is going to fall is actually highly likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, pessimism about a systemmic problem is almost as deadly as the problem itself.
Take it from me, I'm in the UK, and no-one does pessimism like a Brit ;)
First off, you're assuming people don't know where to direct their anger. They might not know they exact people but they aren't directing it at, I dunno, the crossing guard.
Secondly, people are convinced the system will fail if they don't do anything. No one is convinced that the country is lost no matter what. People are convinced that the country is lost if we sit with our collective thumbs up our butts.
People know things are wrong, big things. To me, pessimism is not being angry. Accepting it because "that's how it is" IS.
Falling housing prices, higher unemployment and massive government bailouts WITHOUT public outcry and anger would do more to demoralize the people. This needs to be talked about every day.
"This is the problem, this is what we're doing to fix it, this is what you can do"
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And if it wasn't house prices and Unemployment, it would be 'Pr0n' or lack of 'Family Values' etc, there's always something to be angry about.
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And if it wasn't house prices and Unemployment, it would be 'Pr0n' or lack of 'Family Values' etc, there's always something to be angry about.
As evident by this thread. It's clearly not an issue sole to Americans.
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To be honest, if wasn't a world-wide phenomenon, I wouldn't have found the study funny in the first place ;)
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To be honest, if wasn't a world-wide phenomenon, I wouldn't have found the study funny in the first place ;)
I guess so. It was just Rick James' statement that really got me going on this. I am a bit paranoid like that. :p
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To be honest, I've often wondered what 'family values' actually are.
Is that when beating your son with a belt was considered discipline and not child cruelty? ;)
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I agree with you in a sense Flip, if the media would bring more better things to light we would pull out of the recession faster, as no doubt a lot of our problems is from the feel as you think attitude which helps dig us deeper into a hole.
On the flipside(no pun intended :p) one can't help but worry or not be happy with what is going on. Sure, you may be doing good right now, but if your company goes bankrupt of lays people off, you are no longer doing good.
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WTF @ those statistics.
Silly America. Maybe it's about time Canada annexed a b!tch.
We really don't want to :)
Plus they wouldn't like our quasi-British Isles way of doing things.
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I agree with you in a sense Flip, if the media would bring more better things to light we would pull out of the recession faster, as no doubt a lot of our problems is from the feel as you think attitude which helps dig us deeper into a hole.
How will upbeat stories increase housing prices? Or create new jobs, or prop up GM?
Will cute stories about kittens refinance people's mortgages? Or lower their credit?
This is not Peter Pan, we can't just think happy thoughts and we'll go flying.
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I agree with you in a sense Flip, if the media would bring more better things to light we would pull out of the recession faster, as no doubt a lot of our problems is from the feel as you think attitude which helps dig us deeper into a hole.
How will upbeat stories increase housing prices? Or create new jobs, or prop up GM?
Will cute stories about kittens refinance people's mortgages? Or lower their credit?
This is not Peter Pan, we can't just think happy thoughts and we'll go flying.
Because allot of problems in the markets are based on investors panic levels and the media makes them panic...so they sell more than they buy and then the market takes a tumble so everyone looses money and corporations feel panicked and start laying off workers and then so on and so forth.
Half of the damn thing is about euphoria in the good times and terror and panic in the bad ones. They will get over all of this once the media finds something new to harp about. The War on Terror occupied us for 7 years...now we need something new and the financial crisis is great right now. Give it a year or two and the media will find something new to chase after. Its the way of things.
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Because allot of problems in the markets are based on investors panic levels and the media makes them panic...so they sell more than they buy and then the market takes a tumble so everyone looses money and corporations feel panicked and start laying off workers and then so on and so forth.
Half of the damn thing is about euphoria in the good times and terror and panic in the bad ones. They will get over all of this once the media finds something new to harp about. The War on Terror occupied us for 7 years...now we need something new and the financial crisis is great right now. Give it a year or two and the media will find something new to chase after. Its the way of things.
So all these banks went out of business and all these homes plummeted in price because we sold? This has nothing to do with people taking out mortgages on houses they couldn't possibly pay for and financial institutions taking huge loans to play the game that they can't pay back now?
People aren't buying new cars from GM and like not because people didn't want SUVs with high gas prices but because we "sold more than we bought"?
Making happy fun times will not give people jobs, refinance their mortgage or lower their credit card debt. If we ignore it, it's not going to just go away.
This is going to get worse before it gets better and we can't keep candy coating things.
We need ways of creating jobs, we need ways of redoing the credit in this country and avoid a continually falling housing market. We don't need human interest stories.
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Because allot of problems in the markets are based on investors panic levels and the media makes them panic...so they sell more than they buy and then the market takes a tumble so everyone looses money and corporations feel panicked and start laying off workers and then so on and so forth.
Half of the damn thing is about euphoria in the good times and terror and panic in the bad ones. They will get over all of this once the media finds something new to harp about. The War on Terror occupied us for 7 years...now we need something new and the financial crisis is great right now. Give it a year or two and the media will find something new to chase after. Its the way of things.
So all these banks went out of business and all these homes plummeted in price because we sold? This has nothing to do with people taking out mortgages on houses they couldn't possibly pay for and financial institutions taking huge loans to play the game that they can't pay back now?
People aren't buying new cars from GM and like not because people didn't want SUVs with high gas prices but because we "sold more than we bought"?
Making happy fun times will not give people jobs, refinance their mortgage or lower their credit card debt. If we ignore it, it's not going to just go away.
This is going to get worse before it gets better and we can't keep candy coating things.
We need ways of creating jobs, we need ways of redoing the credit in this country and avoid a continually falling housing market. We don't need human interest stories.
Then in both cases we need the consumer to go out and buy. But no, the consumer is so terrified partly due to the media, they won't buy anything. The consumer not buying anything, brings business sales down, which makes stock owners sale because the business may lose money, the business has to make cuts to save money thus inducing layoffs, the media picks up the layoffs which are then broadcasted, in turn doing the exact same thing again.
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Then in both cases we need the consumer to go out and buy. But no, the consumer is so terrified partly due to the media, they won't buy anything. The consumer not buying anything, brings business sales down, which makes stock owners sale because the business may lose money, the business has to make cuts to save money thus inducing layoffs, the media picks up the layoffs which are then broadcasted, in turn doing the exact same thing again.
The consumer does not have the money. That's the point, people aren't buying new cars because they're scared, they aren't buying them because they can't (couldn't) afford new SUVs and such with high gas prices.
People can't buy houses because they can't afford the loans. Older loans that gave sweet terms to people just don't exist because they collapsed. People got away with buying huge houses with little income, no down payment. They aren't going to start giving out these loans again just to make everything hunky dory.
Savings are going down, credit card debt is up and people aren't able to use their continually raising home values to get more cash.
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Then in both cases we need the consumer to go out and buy. But no, the consumer is so terrified partly due to the media, they won't buy anything. The consumer not buying anything, brings business sales down, which makes stock owners sale because the business may lose money, the business has to make cuts to save money thus inducing layoffs, the media picks up the layoffs which are then broadcasted, in turn doing the exact same thing again.
The consumer does not have the money. That's the point, people aren't buying new cars because they're scared, they aren't buying them because they can't (couldn't) afford new SUVs and such with high gas prices.
People can't buy houses because they can't afford the loans. Older loans that gave sweet terms to people just don't exist because they collapsed. People got away with buying huge houses with little income, no down payment. They aren't going to start giving out these loans again just to make everything hunky dory.
Savings are going down, credit card debt is up and people aren't able to use their continually raising home values to get more cash.
Hmm, saw an article the other day saying money being saved is drastically up.
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the UK has been hit by recession before, back in the 80's. People did lose their jobs etc but things settled after a while
The problem is that people spent more than they can afford without saving for the future. If you have a society that depends on people spending, you will get into troubles the moment these people cannot spend. I would not be surprised if there are more people working in mobile phone shops than teachers; house prices have shot up immensely and now its only natural that they will come down; so much money spent in terrorizing errrr fighting terror I mean, etc etc.
And the big crash in the 20's came because people got scared and stopped buying.
I say we all go out spent our money so that we help people keep their jobs.If things really get ugly then at least we enjoyed it :lol:
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Then in both cases we need the consumer to go out and buy. But no, the consumer is so terrified partly due to the media, they won't buy anything. The consumer not buying anything, brings business sales down, which makes stock owners sale because the business may lose money, the business has to make cuts to save money thus inducing layoffs, the media picks up the layoffs which are then broadcasted, in turn doing the exact same thing again.
The consumer does not have the money. That's the point, people aren't buying new cars because they're scared, they aren't buying them because they can't (couldn't) afford new SUVs and such with high gas prices.
People can't buy houses because they can't afford the loans. Older loans that gave sweet terms to people just don't exist because they collapsed. People got away with buying huge houses with little income, no down payment. They aren't going to start giving out these loans again just to make everything hunky dory.
Savings are going down, credit card debt is up and people aren't able to use their continually raising home values to get more cash.
Hmm, saw an article the other day saying money being saved is drastically up.
And I have articles that say people are blowing through their spending to pay bills. I'm sure some people are in fact saving money.
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Then in both cases we need the consumer to go out and buy. But no, the consumer is so terrified partly due to the media, they won't buy anything. The consumer not buying anything, brings business sales down, which makes stock owners sale because the business may lose money, the business has to make cuts to save money thus inducing layoffs, the media picks up the layoffs which are then broadcasted, in turn doing the exact same thing again.
If the current economic system cannot function without the vast majority of western civilization buying useless junk they do not need and, in the long run, cannot afford, maybe it needs to collapse. If it cannot function without exploiting the impoverished 3rd world for the cheap manufacture of said junk, leaving them in a far worse condition than before "civilization" found them, maybe it needs to collapse.
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Any data to back up the idea that the 3rd world is worse off than it was?
Any metrics to use to measure that?
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I'd personally say China became a huge player on the international arena and is experiencing huge economical growth thanks to being the world's factory.
Also- the economy would work without all the junk on the market, it would just be a lot smaller (think the early 1900's in the USA).
And finally- perihelion, let's say you get to choose what kind of economic system comes next, what is your idea for a replacement?