The Hollywood Liberal

       AP Slants The News.

Here is an interesting way to show how AP slants the news in favor of Bush. This morning I went online and found this story.

Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933

The story noted that Americans spent had spent all of the money they made last year, and had to dip into thier savings accounts to help pay for thier purchases. This is only the third year this has ever happened, the other 2 years being 1932, and 1933, when we were in the midst of the Great Depression. The report prepared by the commerce department noted that consumer spending in December was up by 0.9 percent.
which was more then double the previous 2 months. The AP story went on to say that people felt OK with spending more then they make becuase of the housing boom which now appears to be over. So in other words the only thing stopping us from sliding into another depression is the fact that housing prices have risen so much that people could use some of the profit on buying things like record level priced oil, and food. One could then conclude that now that the housing boom is over, look out below.

Someone at the Whitehouse must have read the story and made a phone call, because a little later the story AP was putting up on the front page's headline was a little different.

Consumer spending surprisingly strong

In the new story, gone was all mention of negative savings rates, parralleling the great depression. Nothing was noted about how we are now at 1933 levels of savings,
with another depression possibly right around the corner. Instead the tone of the story was that higher consumer spending was a good thing, and that the 0.9 rise was something to cheer about. Heres a quote: ""The consumer is still alive and well despite softening of the housing market," said David Powell, an analyst at IDEA global in New York."
It just goes to show that its not what they say, its how they say it. Thanks AP, that second story makes me feel much better.

posted by hcpgr @ 10:53 AM Permalink