Part 1 - Speaking the Language
Here is a quote from today’s LA Times. Not the online version; the printed one. The banner headline:
$100 Billion jobs package key to budget.
The first paragraph:
“The White House envisions a $1.267 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2011, smaller than this year’s projected $1.56 trillion. That would be 8.3% of the gross domestic product, down from 10.6% this year. The White House Budget Office forecasts that it could be trimmed to less than 4% of the GDP by 2015…”
Huh?....
Note some key words in this quote:
smaller, down from, trimmed to, less than…
We’re talking about trillions of dollars here. What do these words mean?
I have to mention this: In the published version, 1.267 was printed without the decimal point, which read as 1267 Trillion. So I feel I’m doing the LA Times a favor by finding their mistake and correcting it. But I’m not going to embarrass them by calling them and bringing it to their attention. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Do you really grasp the difference between 1267 Trillion dollars and 1.267 Trillion dollars?
Re-read the first paragraph slowly. Go ahead. I’ll wait…
Does anyone understand any of this economic gibberish who, like me, is not a PhD in economics? Or even if they are? Who can possibly think in terms of millions and billions and trillions? At this point, at least when you get past the price tag of acreage in Beverly Hills, the numbers don’t mean anything. They just imply BIG and that’s it. Adding percentages to gauge rise or fall does not make it any clearer. The perspective is no more percipient by saying the GDP will be “trimmed” by 2015, nor would it be credible even if it were comprehensible, because everything else economically has been going steadily upward for years and years.
What are we to make of this financial report that keeps repeating itself everyday, or every other day, to varying degrees? What are we to make of this kind of economic “forecasting” by the government, and subsequently by “respectable” newspapers like LA Times? Is a story like this written for Wall Street Suits in board rooms with wide chalkboards and big charts so they can better understand what’s going on?
I don’t think so. I don’t think they get their economic news from the morning paper. Once upon a time perhaps.
What then?
The headline reveals a clue, for it signifies the primary “target group” of the article. The headline is not a $1.267 Trillion Deficit to be trimmed by 2015 package. It is not a Department of Defense package. It is a Jobs Package. This is a headline for those who are jobless, or those who are very concerned about job security. The Hot Spot, according to government perception, is JOBS. Government spin talks ceaselessly about “creating more jobs” to stimulate the economy. Note that they never say “better” jobs, or “more fulfilling” jobs. The goal is always to “create more jobs.”
What jobs? At what pay?
I can assure you that if you are uncertain about where your next meal is coming from, a $100 billion Jobs Package is meaningless. Granted, the amount makes it sound impressive. But, to put this in context, if $100 Billion is given away to 6 Billion people (the current world population – roughly), then everyone gets $16.66. So when the government proposes a $100 billion jobs package, nobody who needs the money is actually getting the money. The money is likely going to pay the salaries of all the people running and executing the new instituted programs that those seeking benefits will have to apply for, and eventually get taxed for when they get whatever money or benefits the new programs will grant them, if they qualify…
The fast food manager who has ten workers, each being paid $9.00/ hour, will not give them all raises with this Jobs Stimulus package. Instead, he can hire five more people at $9.00/ hour, thereby scaling all his workers back to thirty hours instead of forty. Great idea.
What then? What’s the point? What are we to make of all this financial gabble? There are plenty of crass words for it that everyone knows. However, one of my favorite Irish words is:
Blarney.
Snake Oil. Salesmanship. Rhetoric designed to impress the reader into thinking that experts have their fingers on the economic pulse of the nation. When our heads swim at these vast numbers and blurry percentages, we realize we have no idea what’s being talked about and have to trust that higher minds understand it all and would explain it all to us, if we could only understand the language. In the case of this particular story, that President Obama is on it. He’s submitting “The Budget.” He’s getting the job done. A deficit of $1.2 trillion is less than a deficit of $1.5 trillion, so that’s a good thing. We can relax because we understand at least some of the arithmetic. The deficit is maybe going down over the next few years, and therefore the economy is getting better. Nowhere do we hear reported the simple truth: “We don’t know how to fix it.” Instead, as usual, we are assured, not that all will be well, but as convoluted and inflated as things are, that nothing is really wrong at all, as if it could all be chalked up to a couple of pencil errors in the Grand Ledger, as if to say don't worry...We can all be cautiously optimistic...everything is under control...
* *
Cautious Optimism –
Part 2
Beyonce Or the National Deficit?...Decisions, Decisions
(Please read Part 1 first)
This “top” story in the Sunday LA Times on the Obama Budget jobs package took up one quarter the column width of the top of the page. The other three quarters, next to the banner headline, was a very large color picture of Beyonce Knowles performing at the Grammy Awards. The picture nicely shows off her attractive…er…legs.
I couldn’t help wondering, Was this intentional? Was this a strategic placement, designed to confuse the brain, to lessen the impact of a top story full of so much economic spin that most readers would probably start reading and after the first paragraph decide whatever this means, it can’t be good...?
Perhaps those who do have their finger on the pulse of the nation’s economic health, and more specifically, those who actually control the pulse, don’t want you to understand any of this. Maybe they want you to look at Beyonce.
Oh come on! I can hear you saying. It was Grammy night! She won a lot of awards! It’s news!
This is a coincidence? You think? You think the LA Times editor decided to put a rather large picture of her on the front page simply because she is news?
Well, I suppose it is possible. It is done all the time, right?
More than likely, the photo decision was to help sell the morning edition. And it probably worked. But could there have been another reason Beyonce was placed so intimately close to the budget article? To detract one’s attention away from it?
Oh come on, I can hear you saying again. You’re reaching this time!
Yes, maybe I am. But wait, there’s more. Read on and see how crazy…well…
Crazy am I?…
Back to the deficit article… er, I mean the $100 Billion Jobs package budget article. Excuse the mistake; it was difficult to tell what the article was really about. The article itself looked good. It looked appropriately official. It read smart enough to make most people feel too dumb to contest it. If you don’t know what the article says, then obviously you’re not smart enough to understand anything in it.
But you understand Beyonce well enough. And after you see her larger than usual picture, then maybe you won’t go back to reading about the GDP, or at least thinking too hard about it.
GDP? You mean Gross Domestic Product?
No. I mean, Gams (lookin’) DAMN proper!!...
So what’s the point, you might be asking yourself. You're saying this is all some kind of conspiracy? Is this what you’re driving at? Well, I don’t want to say yes – and I can’t say no. But if I say “No” (No, there’s no conspiracy here), then it is all a big coincidence and all the numbers and conclusions of the article mentioned in Part 1 can simply be accepted as a piece of boring drivel that often finds its way into a newspaper, one that even editors don’t want to include, who would throw it away if they did not feel constrained to include it because it is news, and because it does involve the President. And if Beyonce’s picture takes up three-quarters of the page width, and one quarter of the page length, so what? It’s no matter that most front page pictures of people are not usually or nearly that big…usually…
But if I say “Yes?” (Yes, there is a conspiracy). Then what is the conspiracy?
Let us digress for a moment…
Conspiracy is such an ugly, uncomfortable, itchy word. Let us instead use the word agenda. That word has a more acceptable, professional, and legitimate connotation. After all, when we say that people have conspired to do a certain thing, we are in fact saying that people have agreed on a common agenda. The “conspiracy” to carry out the events of 9/11 was in truth an “agreed-upon agenda” by certain parties, no matter who they were. It is the same with the “conspiracy” to kill John Kennedy. Not to make light of these historical tragedies, but every business and organization has an agenda, and these agendas are not necessarily public. People can also “conspire” to throw a surprise birthday party.
So if I say “Yes,” (Yes, there is an agenda) this begs two questions:
• What is the agenda?
• Whose agenda is it?
What is the agenda? > The newspaper decides what you are going to read in the paper (and how you are going to read about it). They “decide” what the news is for the day and what is worth reading. There is no getting around that. This is traditionally the way it has been done. Typically this is the domain of the Editor-in Chief, and to whomever he delegates authority, different department editors, etc.
Whose agenda is it? > Whoever owns the paper, or to whomever the publisher delegates this responsibility, theoretically.
The agenda can be very broad and general, or very narrow and specific. eg. Whether the paper is independent or structured, Republican or Democrat. It may be broad and subtle (We love conservatives more than liberals), or narrow and more obvious (We hate the mayor). The agenda may not be obvious to the reader but you can be sure it is to those who own the paper.
Think for a moment about how you form your opinions. Are you are an independent thinker who asks a question to yourself and then finds opinions that reflect pros and cons? Or maybe your opinion about something is not formed until you have already heard someone else's opinion first, and then you take the time to reflect on it.
Either way you form an opinion after you have considered other opinions, or in some cases had opinions forced on you at an early age, unconsciously handed down to you by your parents, teachers, church ministers, etc.
Now consider this: Newspapers are filled with opinions. So are magazines, TV shows, advertising. In fact, everything artificial represents an opinion about something. It is easy or convenient to forget that some of the time the sources of those opinions are endeavoring to convince you that you should share the same opinion. Why? For profit in some cases, as in advertising. To persuade you, as in getting you to vote for one candidate over another.
The bottom reason why is to further an agenda, which essentially means, “Here is what we’re going to do.”
Back to the article one more time. So what is the real agenda here in this story about the budget?
Well…try this on for size.
It is the President’s budget; it is front page news. Since it is economic in nature and since everyone knows the economy is not good, make the article long, convoluted with numbers and percentages and projections, and especially boring. Couch the article in confusing economic blather that requires the kind of careful slow attentive reading that most readers are too impatient for, so that they will not dwell on it for long, so that most people will read the highly confusing and nebulous first paragraph, then either skip to the ambiguous end for a summary, and thank God that, as far as the economy goes, at least someone else is on it...
Or?
Or slide their eyes to the left side of the page and stare at Beyonce, and think, Six awards...Gee, she must be on it...
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