CNN's Crack Reporting Staff

[GRAYWOLF]

I don't envy reporters.  Sometimes I even feel downright sorry for them.  Take the staff at CNN, for example.  They realize that the "stimulus" effort is losing public support.  According to their own polling data, 56% of the public oppose the plan, while 42% still support it.  Only 25% of those polled believe the stimulus has helped the middle class.

In what I can only assume is a public relations effort designed to restore Americans' faith in the President's ability to "save or create jobs" by throwing borrowed money down a government rat hole, CNN has decided to launch a week-long analysis of the program.  The network's "The Stimulus Project," represents its best effort to smear as much lipstick on the stimulus pig as it can.  The entire reporting staff is on the job, and the series is as in-depth a review of the government's plan as CNN can muster without actually cracking open an economics book.

Yet despite the network's full-court press, even their reporters seem to be scratching their heads, wondering why such a brilliant plan hasn't delivered the results that were promised ten months ago.  They'd better figure something out quick, though.  Obama's State of the Union speech is just a few hours away, and after the week he's had, I'm sure he'd appreciate whatever cover CNN can drum up for him.

To be perfectly honest, though, I feel a little uneasy watching CNN's reporters fumble around in the dark looking for traces of economic recovery attributable to the stimulus plan.  It's a lot like watching a week-long snipe hunt.  It's funny for a while, but at some point the joke just becomes cruel and you start to hope that someone will have mercy on them and call the whole thing off.  After all, this isn't summer camp.  This snipe hunt is actually televised.

But let's give Tony Harris, Campbell Brown, Ali Velshi, and all the other little CNN troopers some credit.  They have indeed tried their best to point out the obvious benefits that the stimulus plan has bestowed upon a select few individuals.  And as one would expect, they have avoided any consideration whatsoever of the hidden costs that have been foisted on the American populace as a whole.  For example, this is what the CNN/Money webpage looked like last night.  How many "what is seen and what is not seen" fallacies can they cram onto a single page?

"The Stimulus Project" does question from time to time whether individual initiatives are really useful, even by the media's own lax standards.  For example, there was a piece on the cost of street signs that advertise how various projects are being funded with stimulus money.  Ohio State Senator Tim Grendell objects to spending $1M in taxpayer money just to advertise that the state is spending taxpayer money.

These counterpoint stories are few and far between, however.  Most of the coverage focuses instead on the recipients of all that taxpayer loot and the number of jobs that have been "created" from it (the Obama administration claims that figure is now 2 million jobs, by the way).  "The Stimulus Project" spends most of the programming day presenting stories about the husband and wife who were able to keep their home thanks to the stimulus program, or how the stimulus program "lights up the solar energy biz."

Of course it's easy to find individuals who benefit from receiving other people's money (I suspect it would be hard not to find them), but CNN's relentless focus on the obvious falls far short of proving the case that government spending is helpful to the economy as a whole.  Nor does it prove that the government can spend your money better than you can.  And it certainly does nothing to suggest that the short-term "stimulus" effects felt by those lucky few individuals are in any way sustainable over the long term without constant injections of additional taxpayer money.

These questions are not merely left unanswered by CNN's analysts, they are never even considered.  CNN has done a remarkable job at accepting uncritically the administration's claim that spending money is de facto a good thing for the economy – regardless of whether the money comes from real savings, borrowing, or printing; and regardless of what the money is spent on.  Evidently the CNN team believes that paying people to dig holes and fill them back up again would be just as "stimulative" as any other project that could be undertaken.  In this respect CNN is firmly on the Keynesian side of the Hayek vs. Keynes debate - or would be if they had any idea who Hayek and Keynes were.

http://www.abeginnersguidetofreedom.com/

[Bezor]

Gray:

Did you attend the National Tea Baggers mutual support group yesterday?

[GRAYWOLF]

never heard of it...

[MG]

Every government vehicle should display this famous bumper sticker:

How can I be overdrawn? I still have checks!

[Ultra]