Is recession media generated?

I think that the media make a huge contribution to any recession. If people are going to feel nervous about their standard of living, they are bound to spend less and take more care. This has an effect on manufacturers who watch as their sales figues get lower and lower, and some go bust. I once listend to an interesting podcast in which the speaker asked a simple question. Where has the wealth gone? It can't vanish into thin air, so that means that somebody has it. With property for instance, the bank lent the money and then repossessed the property - so the bank has the property and that's where the wealth is tied up. I am no mathematician, but the money used to buy the property was just paper, or in today's standards, figures on a database, and that's all that seems to be gone. All that is happened, is things are moving about slower now. Goods are taking longer to get out to the consumers, and that's what all the trouble seems to be about. It's all very subjective, yet not subjective because people go hungry and lose homes and other stuff. I think it would make a big difference if the media was more upbeat, but would it? I don't think they're about to try... I wonder why? Having disagreements and arguments happen in most sessions. This happens because therapist and clients need to be open and talk about what they feel. It is not that I would want anybody to see it from my point of view, but from their own - i.e. what is true for them, not me as I don't live in their life.. It's difficult to explain, but growth and personal development tends to happen not from having cosy chats, but from interacting to pursue what is true for the client. What I have shared in my post with you, is what has come up for me and I always fully acknowledge that I know how another would experience it... I see emotions and drives as energy, but if others don't then that is OK. Not everything that I say, or they would say would ring true in both our minds - we are all unique and have our own inner reality. However, I am not coming to this discussion as a therapist, but just sharing... In therapy, I mostly use questioning process, and that way a client would answer for themselves.. For instance should this topic come up I would ask... When you feel something, what is it that you are feeling? What is driving it? Could it be energy? I could say that it is energy, maybe you wouldn't agree that it's energy and that's OK. From a philosophical viewpoint I could ask myself... Is it true that a person can fall out of love? Or is it true that that person didn't love in the first place? I have heard both men and women saying that they once loved their partner and then stopped loving them. It wasn't my reality, it was theirs. Were they telling lies? Making excuses? How could I know that? And this would probably bring up a heap of other questions too.. _Derek

Well if we consider media to be information then yes. I don't think we can put this tag on any particular media coverage however (tv, newspaper, internet, etc) as a controller but can maybe on overall information that gets passed around. Certainly people are going to be listening to each other to make decisions. Whether it is accurate or not is another story. Whether it is about recession, inflation or good news people will look for financial gain and/or best buy and trends get started. I think supply and demand is the best way to describe markets in action and we can never expect those things to stay the same. Yes positive is positive but we also will get negative simply because of the math. supply $ ______ demand $

I actually believe what is occurring now is opposite to what you have stated. The media appears to be working with "rose colored glasses" much of the time -- trying to seek out positives to make people think the economic situation is not as dire as it truly is. Job numbers, for example, are reported in an inflated way. It is claimed that new jobs have been created, more people have found employment, simply based on increasing numbers or percentages. What is not taken into account are people that are not only unemployed but that have completely stopped looking for work or have given up. They aren't on the unemployment rolls any longer because their benefits have run out... it's almost as though we're being asked to accept that those people have simply "disappeared." That makes the numbers look better. I don't think there is anything to be gained by telling people that things are looking up or that things are getting better when, in truth, they aren't. It's doing a disservice to allow people to believe that they don't have to be concerned with the direction the economy is going. Many people are really uninformed as it is and, if all they see are falsely positive headlines, they might not make the best or most sound choices for themselves going forward.

People are spending a lot of money in this area of the state. Many stores offered big discounts and people are looking for good deals. I don't think people are paying any attention to the media here. Personally, I think each of us should know whether we can afford to spend money and stay home when we can't afford to spend. I find just going into the store I'll find something that is needed. Its easier to just avoid the stores when money is short that month.

I watched Michael Moore Capitalism someone else made a video ditching him and they are probably right but what they can't ditch is the part where Moore interviewed political figures who had no idea about recession until they were told by US president at the time Bush Jr they didn't even know where the money went watch it, if you haven't

Well maybe not completely, but I think that there are a lot of times where a moderate problem is overblown into something much bigger. And let's face it, when people hear things in the news, ready things, whatever, they are going to tend to panic. When people panic, they don't really think all too clearly to say the very least which leads to a lot of problems. Of course, positive news doesn't really generate all that much interest with the vast majority. As much as we hate to hear bad news, we cannot really pull ourselves away from the grip of the bad news. There is just really something that is rather intoxicating, there is just something that really causes us to really just sit, wondering if it can get worse. I think that the media has made a bad situation to something that is really bad, because people don't think things through and they make decisions based on what they heard that are stupid decisions.

I think doom and gloom in the magazines and newspapers fuels people's brains. Today in a free newspaper they published a story about it being hard to get a mortgage and house prices going down. In the local council they talk about cuts to services and spending less money. In the hospital they said they have less staff due to cuts. Yesterday I took my daughter to the library. They have machines in there now and less staff. In the Christmas 2011 many people bought low cost presents only or didn't buy any present at all. The media show a miserable picture and it makes people spend less. The recession is a little bit media generated. They need to be more upbeat and hopeful for the future. They love to scaremonger people.