Precisely, the news media only wants to cause a frenzy because it sells more papers and helps their ratings. Look at the history of Pulitzer and Hearst. That should tell you something about what the current media will do to sell papers and improve ratings (they even named a prize after the one hack). Bad news sells better than good news. How many times in the last few years have they talked about the good news in the economy? Even though I will agree our economy hasn't been perfect, there has been plenty of good news. They don't talk about the new jobs being created, they only talk about the places that are laying off. They didn't talk about how easy it was to get a loan when the rates were low, they were trying to scare us to death about massive inflation.

The fact of the matter is when they report everything as bad people who believe anything they hear on television respond to this in radical ways and that leads to people spending less which effects other businesses. What your not taking into account is how gullible people really are when it comes to hearing something that they heard on television, because we all know that if you saw it on television it must be true.

I agree with most of what you said Patrick on the previous post as well. Too many people spend every cent they earn today and what they will earn tomorrow. My parents could live a far more luxurious lifestyle, but they don't because it first of all goes against what my father was raised to do, plus he hates being in debt. We only buy cars when we can afford to buy one via a full down payment and we drive them until it is no longer cost effective to keep running them (though we normally get rid of them far before that point unlike my dad's siblings, but they generally have over 100K on them nonetheless). We have had a few luxuries, we once owned half a 1959 Piper Comanche with another pilot until the engine blew and it crashed (for the record, everyone was okay).

My aunt on my mother's side has an obsession with trying to keep up with the Jones' and she is always struggling to pay her bills. She has an enormous house/estate, drives a new Infinity G35X, has a pontoon boat which she uses on her lake, has a condo in Florida with my cousin for when she wants to take a vacation (which is a couple times a month) via flying on a jet, eats out at expensive places in St. Louis all the time, spends I don't know how much money on clothes at full price that she might wear once and of course these are generally gaudy/expensive things to begin with, gives her grandkids tons of crap, etc. The reason how she is able to do all of this is that she started her own business. Now having said all of this, she does deserve the money she makes because she does work hard. The point is that people that try to keep up with the Jones' are going to have the financial issues of the Jones,' the people who spend money practically will be better off in the long run.