Things that won’t be repeated in the liberals’ media division, so I created this web site:
An exchange moments ago between CTV Newsnet anchor Dan Matheson and University of Calgary economist Frank Atkins:
CTV Newsnet anchor Dan Matheson: ….We lay Canadians hear so much conflicting information and [Bank of Canada Governor] said this very emphatically: “We do not have the fundamental problems in Canada that so many other countries do.” So does that mean we are panicking? Are we overreacting? Or is the state of our economy such that we really do need to take some dramatic change?
Frank Atkins: Well I have to agree I think we’re panicking. We’re really, really overreacting today. … And so when you look at what’s coming in fiscal policy, you have to say that boy, this is a real overkill that we’re playing here, given that the Canadian economy is not really as bad as we’re being led to believe.
Let’s add that to these other unmentionables I’ve blogged about in the recent past: Here’s my January 14 2009 blog entry, which also alludes to an October 6 2008 blog entry:
[…]
And here’s something they also fail to report on their big scary “YOUR BUSINESS” segment newscast, even though I think I can somehow prove that they have the information in hand over there at the big socialism-reliant state-owned media behemoth:
If all that bad economic news has made you nervous about spending money or investing in the stock market, blame the people telling you about it.
Even if your job is safe, the value of your house hasn’t plunged and your investment portfolio isn’t keeping you up at night, some experts say the media is scaring consumers from opening their wallets, which in turn is only adding to the woes of Canada’s recessionary economy.
“Media attitudes do help to shape how consumers feel,” said Glen Hodgson, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, an Ottawa-based economic research group.
“If (the media) keep saying the sky is falling, well, people think the sky is falling.” …
But the CBC doesn’t care. Or worse, they do. They are fully aware, and carry on as they do, anyway. For some reason.
In fact this is at least the second time they’ve been told that the media is largely driving this recession. Not including the dozens of times I’ve mentioned it. Over… and over… and over… repeatedly…
For example, they did a report last year which I blogged about in a blog entry called “CBC constantly trashes economy; asks academic if it’s possible to talk nation into recession”. Here’s part of that actual entry:
[…]
CBC anchor Harry Forestall: Do you worry sometimes that we could we could effectively talk ourselves into a recession? Is there any risk of that?
With no sense of irony whatsoever at the CBC, he asked that question over the huge CBC banner tendentiously reading “MARKET MISERY”. Previous banners today and since roughly the exact date Stephen Harper was elected have read things like “THE R-WORD?” and “THE 
D-WORD?” and “ECONOMIC MELTDOWN”, and “ECONOMIC CRASH COMING?” and “HEAD FOR THE HILLS”. (Never with the term “so-called” before those things, as they do “the so-called war on terror”.)
And the guest, Associate Professor of Economics at Dalhousie University, Marina Adshade, threw this back:
Marina Adshade: “Oh I definitely worry that we can talk ourselves into a recession.”.
D’oh!
It’s not that they didn’t know that—they certainly did. They bank on it. It’s just that they probably didn’t exactly want that cat to be let out of the bag, at least not quite so publicly. Layton and Dion are gonna be pissed!
And she continued:
“So much of what happens in the economy depends on how people perceive what’s going to happen in the future in terms of their employment and in terms of their investment and if people start getting concerned about those things, then they start scaling back on their spending, people start losing their jobs, because people aren’t buying the goods that they’re producing anymore, and it definitely can create some problems in the economy. One of the things that kept the U.S. economy over the summer is that Americans continue to spend, they continue to buy. In the last month that’s really changed and they started to scale back on their spending, I think if Canadians get concerned about a recession that’s exactly what could happen here.”
I could just about hear the CBC producers and crew screaming from control rooms across the country. Damn! We set him up with the university professor! He had to ask that question? And was she vetted? What is going on around here?!
Well anyway, it confirmed that their apparent tactic is worth continuing. You can talk down the economy by constantly raising doubts and trash talking it, just like Dion and Layton do. It’s just that it’s more embarrassingly obvious when they do it now.
Minutes later: Here comes another interview. We’re all going to economic Hell.
But we support the troops by golly!
Here once again are the links to those earlier blog entries:
• CBC constantly trashes economy; asks academic if it’s possible to talk nation into recession
• CBC reports on “wretched retail”; fails to report on “fabulous retail” when sales were rising
And here’s another goodie:
• War on Recession? Know the real enemies.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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