Lisa reflected on the resent passing of actors Karl Malden, Farrah Fawcett, and musicians Michael Jackson, and Ed McMann. Last night Peter Schiff, a nationally recognized figure who is often referred to as Dr. Doom, was on to discuss his new book predicting the economic crash. His book left Lisa with a much broader panoramic sense on today’s issues. We judge our economic state based off of what some economist in Washington, some forecaster, or some fortuneteller on Wall Street says the expectations for the unemployment figures should be. And if that figure stays status quote, everyone is content, regardless of how many people are left unemployed. However, if the expected or given figure suddenly decreases, everyone begins to panic over the crashing economy. Yet no one stops to analyze these random notions and ridiculous figures that are being fed to us daily. The fact of the matter is that the unemployment figures still are growing and whether or not the expected figure has been met, surpassed, or lowered, over 400,000 people in this country now find themselves unemployed and that has affected and will continue to affect our workers and our economy. Did you see the news today about California wanting to issue IOU’s because they can’t afford to repay their debt? Is this a sign for real concern as California is very often a harbinger of other trends. Peter Schiff, making a lot of sense, argued against the assumption that a consumer driven economy is a better economy than an economy driven by people who actually produce and sell the things they make, like we used to be from lets say 1935 to 1970. Why do we assume that an economy based on borrowing is better than an economy based on saving? Is moving from a manufacturing to a service economy somehow better? Is it really better to keep borrowing on every last dollar of equity in our homes, rather than save the money? There are so many things wrong in our country today, particularly with our current government which is constantly interfering with economic decisions, personal choices, and every segment of our lives, that consequently Lisa feels things will only get worse. The weather man/woman suffer consequences when the weather predicted doesn’t turn out they way it was forecasted. But are economists punished for their mis-forecasts, as well. Peter Schiff pointed out that when Ben Bernaki (head of the Federal Reserve) predicted that the housing prices would never go down and there would be no housing bubble, he suffered zero consequences when found wrong. Lisa, along with many viewers, does not listen to the forecasted weather because they are proven wrong more than half of the time. But what about the economists that are also all to often proven wrong? What are the consequences for their inaccurate predictions? Well, obviously none. Helen Thomas, perhaps the longest White House Press Reporter in the White House Press Corp, has always spoken her mind. Accused of being a liberal for her hatred of President Bush and the way he manipulated our Democracy, she left the Press Corp for awhile. She now is back and with a new book to boot. Also, Lisa played a condescending conversation from Obama’s Press Secretary between the Press Corp. Chip Reed (White House Correspondent for CBS News) questioned why the Press had to send questions to the White House before hand to what was suppose to be an open forum for the public to freely ask questions of Press Secretary (Robert) Gibb. In response, Gibb stated that all the questions selected were from people who sent in emails through facebook and twitter. Should the White House be allowed to censor which questions are asked in an open forum? Helen Thomas was amazed that the same people who so call ask for openness and transparency are in fact the same people who attempt to control the Press. In addition, Chip Reed argued against an upcoming Town Hall meeting at which he said the White House was planting the people who were going to be asking the so called Town Hall questions. Helen Thomas pointed out that this is part of a new pattern, and that this is the first time in history that people in the Press have been so co-opted by the government that they’ve been called by the White House the night before and told they would be called on the next day to have their questions answered. In other words the White House is totally controlling the White House Press Corp, a Press Corp that happens to be in the White House. This is one of Lisa’s main problems with government in general, and specifically this particular White House for co-opting the media. A politically feed media does not serve our country well. What serves our country well is for the media to fight back, to criticize, to question, to be cynical, skeptical, and to not believe what’s thrown at them. How many times have we learned that the government is lying? It’s what they do, we have to accept that. And the job of the press is to fight back; it is not to be co-opted. We applaud those like Helen Thomas who is fighting back. Lisa suggests that listeners to her show should look for propublica, a not for profit press model on the web; it’s a new way of looking at news for investigative reports. Lisa believes it was started by a former Stanford University professor.
