Pick a day any day and what do you hear, read and see: Negativity from the news media. If there is something positive, it’s most likely spun to the negative. I don’t care if it’s CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or local papers like here in Bergen County, New Jersey, The Record. Listening, reading and watching, what do we have to live for?
Let’s face it, as they say in marketing: Sex Sells! This is their sexy version of condemning our lives because they want to make money. Nothing wrong with that at all. But just once, how about a positive spin on the economy? How about a positive spin on a bad story.
I never used to read the newspaper or watch the news because it was all about death and destruction, because that’s all they had to was to bring negativity into our lives. Over the past few years it has all changed to bad news about all of our financial lives. I am willing to bet (and I do not gamble) that if the collective news media took my suggestion of taking positive spins on everything for a week, the economy would rebound and we would all be ok. BUT, why would they do that? Will it sell? Will they lose their advertisers? Of course it will sell, of course they would not lose advertisers. They would probably gain some.
Remember the last time we had economic difficulty? The last bad stretch we went through was the late 80's with the Savings & Loan debacle. The news media killed real estate then and never gave real estate any credit. You destroyed us (the real estate industry) then and destroyed us now with what was allowed by the government to happen and the news media. It took real estate and the economy a long time to come back. The media helped us along again in the late 90's and early part of this century when they said the economy and the upswing in the real estate market couldn’t last. Way to go media!
Real estate drives every economy. When the real estate market is good, so is everything else. When something is good, the media kills it and is the doomsayer by predicting problems with no basis. It is absolutely not all the fault of the media. They haven’t caused greed that has occurred and driven problems throughout the world, they just stoked the fire. We are living the Gordon Gecko reality and what it has done to us. Here, the media actually did some good, but the regulators-our politicians, sat on their collective butts and reaped the benefits and got fat along with the pompous corporate leaders. It turns out they were only the leaders of how much money they could take as bonuses. Think about it: A top executive gets fired and walks away with millions. This isn’t a game show with departing gifts instead of what is behind door number one. They got not only what was behind the door, but they got the door for their new house too!
The Bailout is helping everything but the little guy. The media is so excited about being negative on the corporate engines and has forced the hand of the fat cows in Washington to bail them out. Now a bailout of the auto industry. Who’s going to bail me out? Who is going to bail out the small business man. Well, they did it for AIG, they are going to do it for GM, but will they come all of the way down the food chain? Earlier I said it was a wonder that suicides haven’t increased, but what has increased are the commercials on TV about depression medication.
We don’t need medication, we need all of the Howard Beales of the world to stand up, open the window and scream: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” (from the movie Network)
It all starts with real estate. Stop helping out these fat slobs in the corporate world and start helping the home owner who was told he could afford a house when he really couldn’t and now his life is crumbling around him. Force the banks to take the money and bail out their mortgagors, not line their pockets with some more unregulated funds. By helping out the little guy, you help out the economy. The heck with the desired trickle down affect. It’s now time for the trickle up affect. Help the little guy. He in turn is able to spend more money on food, clothing and extras. Then the retailer does better and so on and so on. How about that CNN?
Let’s face it, the only place we can get real news is on “Weekend Update” on Saturday nights. If you want to hear someone tell it like it is, go to www.TheKidFromBrooklyn.com.
No media outlet has the guts to make a difference, just help be the cause of the difference. If you say I am wrong, let’s go back a couple of years and think about that starring couple of Bill and Monica. Parents during those years had to fight with their teenagers that oral sex wasn’t sex. The kids said it was ok because the leader of the free world said so after he got caught with his pants down, literally. The media so loved Clinton that not only did they get him elected, they also kept him in office and say that he is a great man. A great orator yes, a man? You be the judge.
As I digress.
As I said in an earlier blog, the best investment is real estate. As a great man (my father) once said, “Land, they aint makin any more of it” It all starts with real estate.
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