I was not quite sure where to post this, Economics Questions probably makes the most sense. If you live outside the , what has the local media in the country where you live been saying about the causes of this current economic crisis? To clarify I am not asking about CNN or Fox News if you get those via satellite.
As for my own case I have lost a great deal of respect for some media figures I used to consider at least marginally pro-free market. Todd Schnitt, a local radio host is someone I used to consider being on the side of economic liberty. When he came out in favor of the bailout it he started contradicting arguments he made in the past. Fox News seems to be rather mixed on this point. Most of Fox’s reporting seems to be (at least in rhetoric) biased towards the bailout. Fox seemed to put the blame on Fannie and Freddie which is very simplistic but at least partially true. The most Anti-bailout commentator I know of in the “mainstream” (whatever that means anymore) is Glen Beck who has even had Ron Paul on sometimes.
I have nothing to say, mainly because our medias (Italy) are already in full panic mode and our economists have already exhausted their stock set of answers.
At the beginning it was all about US loans and banks dragging down the rest of the world with them, for obscure reasons of course. Then it started being about an “unfavorable conjuction” of many events, mainly obscure of course. A little later it was all about “market failing” for lack of regulation. In the past two weeks it’s about people not spending enough to kickstart the economy: we’ve had an infinite parade of our Dear Leaders inviting people to “consume more”. Right now full panic mode has kicked in. The government has run out of options already and we have our Minister of Finance constantly reassuring that “we won’t end up like Argentina” and “our State-issued bonds are the safest in the world, buy them”. It must be told that this man is a self-proclaimed “free-marketer” who practises Socialism with almost religious zeal and appears to ignore even the most basic economic tenets. What a shock.
What really got me worried is the fact that our government has stopped promising bailout money, even to the best connected. Both the medias and the government, in my opinion, are running out of ideas pretty fast. The Italian government strngly campaigned for an European “New Deal”, based around new infrastructures: in these days money is being handed out by the UE (according to medias) but it’s failing to make the least impression on the economy. The colossal bailout plan promised by the EU is melting away in face of strong opposition in Germany, the country that should fork out most of the bill.
All in all if there was still somebody doubting about the impotence and ignorance of our politicians and medias this should settle the score.
I live in Sweden, and here the media always have a more or less social democratic-perspective. The cause of the crises isn’t often talked about (at least at the moment anyway). Mostly the media talks about what the government can and/or should do. It’s almost implied that it was caused in America, because of its “free-market” system.
I wonder how common this is now. I do get a great deal of my information via the Internet but I also listen to the radio, watch some TV news and read dead-tree magazines and sometimes dead-tree newspapers.