Friday, May 30, 2014

US economy shrinks, and New York Times says it's bad for....who???

We had to laugh at this New York Times story about the U.S. economy shrinking: The newspaper wrote it's bad for the White House.

Really? The White House? How about the millions of other people in this country whose wages are falling, who are losing their homes, who can't get a job, who shoulder enormous student debt, who work for temp agencies at poverty wages for years, who are middle-aged and living with their parents, who are 50 years old and scared to lose their jobs because they'll never get another one, who are 60 years old with no retirement savings, who graduated from college and are working at a fast-food restaurant, who got fired for trying to form a union, who are 76 and still working, who have given up looking for work because there are no jobs, who are dipping into their 401(k) plans before they retire?

A shrinking economy means things got worse for them.

This is what the New York Times actually published:
The Commerce Department said on Thursday that the nation’s overall output shrank at an annual rate of 1 percent in the first three months of the year ...It is the first quarter in three years in which the nation’s output of goods and services has contracted.
The figures are bad news for the White House...
Maybe it's just an attempt at self-parody...

(Anyhoo, the good news is that commercial activity appears to be picking up.)