Well...sort of. Put it this way, do you remember a time when someone said the economy is good? No, of course not. It's only done in revisionist mode; It was good during the Clinton years, the economy thrived after WWII, Obama got us back on track after the 2008 depression, etc. The fact is the economy is the economy, good experiences for some, bad experiences for others, but its all up to interpretation.
Using the unemployment rate as a measuring stick offers no real insight. How many people are working 'off the books' yet declared themselves jobless? How many people were listed as unemployed found work by the time the results came out, and visa versa? Where are these statistics pulled from anyhow? Saying the economy is bad and drumming that same message over and over into the population is simply a tool to keep people afraid. "You better be good to your boss and work hard, or else you'll be homeless". "Well, you can leave at 5pm or 6pm as per what we're paying you, but if you can stay till 9pm or 10pm for free, guess who won't get laid off when the next round of cuts come?". More work!! Longer hours!! More stress!! This leads to profits flowing upwards as it originates from work being done outside what's covered in employees' salaries.
For a chance of pace, let's say the government and the media put out a message that the economy was good and a reasonable amount of jobs were available. Would the workforce strive as hard to hold onto their current jobs and grind out extra profitable efforts? No way!! It makes so much more sense for the government and the business world(both of which dictate the media) to instill a mindframe that jobs are scarce and workers need to be in fear that if they don't work superhard, they'll be in major trouble. In fact, once the Nazi Germany system went into full effect, the middle class was depleted through several different means and the weekly work hour rate shot up from 40 to 60(sound familiar?). If that's not enough stress, the media also pushes these images of how celebrities and the ultra rich live their lifestyles, walking around in a $2,000 shirt and vacationing in the south of France every weekend. If you're just some average joe with a $50,000 a year salary, how are you going to feel about your life? Depressing, yes? There's also ads and infommercials to keep pouring the negativity on; Build more muscle immediately, order these pills to have a better sex life, get this DVD to lose weight, buy this cream to get rid of the acne and wrinkles on your face. All this is designed to keep people on edge and in constant fear of something, even if they don't know what that something is.
When it's asked why do Americans have the highest levels of heart disease, it's mainly because of these type of shananagans. I'm sure the triple-decker cheeseburgers and fried oreos don't help much either, but one can't ignore the negativity and stress put on people doesn't contribute to poor heart health as well. If it isn't heart disease, it's depression, or it's insomnia, or erectile dysfunction, whatever a visit to the doctor's office and a pill on a TV commerical can solve. If you want to ignore these messages being conveyed, you almost can't anymore. Thanks to the new generation of cell phones with the iPhones, touch screens, 4G, or whatever is going on now, these messages and images are being delivered to the individual from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they finally fall asleep at night. With TV and the internet at home, internet at the workplace, and now these new age phones, basically we're looking at a screen of negativity 18 out of the 24 hours of the day.
People are put through a ringer - telling them the economy is bad, they're inadequite physically and financially, with the only salvation being working hard at their job for long hours, taking a list of pills, and the necessity to have the latest iPhone to keep those messages pumping to the public whereever they may go 24/7. It's a never ending cycle caused by a long string of hoaxes...
Using the unemployment rate as a measuring stick offers no real insight. How many people are working 'off the books' yet declared themselves jobless? How many people were listed as unemployed found work by the time the results came out, and visa versa? Where are these statistics pulled from anyhow? Saying the economy is bad and drumming that same message over and over into the population is simply a tool to keep people afraid. "You better be good to your boss and work hard, or else you'll be homeless". "Well, you can leave at 5pm or 6pm as per what we're paying you, but if you can stay till 9pm or 10pm for free, guess who won't get laid off when the next round of cuts come?". More work!! Longer hours!! More stress!! This leads to profits flowing upwards as it originates from work being done outside what's covered in employees' salaries.
For a chance of pace, let's say the government and the media put out a message that the economy was good and a reasonable amount of jobs were available. Would the workforce strive as hard to hold onto their current jobs and grind out extra profitable efforts? No way!! It makes so much more sense for the government and the business world(both of which dictate the media) to instill a mindframe that jobs are scarce and workers need to be in fear that if they don't work superhard, they'll be in major trouble. In fact, once the Nazi Germany system went into full effect, the middle class was depleted through several different means and the weekly work hour rate shot up from 40 to 60(sound familiar?). If that's not enough stress, the media also pushes these images of how celebrities and the ultra rich live their lifestyles, walking around in a $2,000 shirt and vacationing in the south of France every weekend. If you're just some average joe with a $50,000 a year salary, how are you going to feel about your life? Depressing, yes? There's also ads and infommercials to keep pouring the negativity on; Build more muscle immediately, order these pills to have a better sex life, get this DVD to lose weight, buy this cream to get rid of the acne and wrinkles on your face. All this is designed to keep people on edge and in constant fear of something, even if they don't know what that something is.
When it's asked why do Americans have the highest levels of heart disease, it's mainly because of these type of shananagans. I'm sure the triple-decker cheeseburgers and fried oreos don't help much either, but one can't ignore the negativity and stress put on people doesn't contribute to poor heart health as well. If it isn't heart disease, it's depression, or it's insomnia, or erectile dysfunction, whatever a visit to the doctor's office and a pill on a TV commerical can solve. If you want to ignore these messages being conveyed, you almost can't anymore. Thanks to the new generation of cell phones with the iPhones, touch screens, 4G, or whatever is going on now, these messages and images are being delivered to the individual from the time they wake up in the morning to the time they finally fall asleep at night. With TV and the internet at home, internet at the workplace, and now these new age phones, basically we're looking at a screen of negativity 18 out of the 24 hours of the day.
People are put through a ringer - telling them the economy is bad, they're inadequite physically and financially, with the only salvation being working hard at their job for long hours, taking a list of pills, and the necessity to have the latest iPhone to keep those messages pumping to the public whereever they may go 24/7. It's a never ending cycle caused by a long string of hoaxes...
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