Thursday, November 19, 2009

LOCAL MAN UNSURE ABOUT AMERICAN ECONOMY RIGHT NOW

A local retiree from Texas is unsure about the state of the American economy right now. “It hasn’t been in the news recently, so does that mean its better?” the man blankly asked his friend Roger during their weekly bowling night. It just dawned on the man last Tuesday that there is no longer any media coverage on The Great Recession. In fact, the man spent an entire day watching CNN, FOX News and ABC, and didn’t find any fear-mongering news stories about unemployment complemented with images of desperately unemployed men. “Katie Couric didn’t put on that stern tone and scare me with all these statistics, and Sean Hannity didn’t frighten me over whether or not I would be able to afford a laptop for my son. So, does that mean everything’s okay again?” he asked. “What’s the deal here?” The retired man did vaguely recall a brief story reported by Brian Williams last August that the “whole Recession thing was slowing down,” but that was so long ago, that he wonders if that’s still the case. “But wait, I don’t get it, so are we still technically in a recession?” he nervously asked Roger and his wife Dorothy. "Since the swine flu is always in the news, does that mean that that is more important than the bad economy? And I heard that the swine flu isn't that bad, right?" he continued very frustratedly. The man, so distraught because the media hadn't been offering loaded adjectives like "shaky" or "severe", will now have to go home, open the New York Times Business section, and sift through the big words to come to some kind of conclusion himself.

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