Watching the News lately has been so depressing...

polkatese

No effin' good news. I found myself getting pissed off as to how we get here and who is responsible (not that it makes any difference, at this point).

How people are supposed to get into the Holiday spirit when there is no spirit left and the psyche of the people is in the crapper?

One last question, has anyone ever tried to ignore the news completely? (I know, it sounds silly and counter intuitive, but hey, No news is great news?)

*ranting off*

treitz3

There is reality and then there is how you perceive things. Personally, if the sun is shining outside my mentality is to reflect that it's a blessing that it is. Go out and enjoy it.

So long as I'm not 6 feet down and I'm still kicking? All is still well.

heiney9

It's hard not to notice what's going on these days. I heard the employment report this morning and it's really depressing. And to think if the automakers fail that number will go up by a lot. I just try to stay in the moment and stay positive. But, it is getting more and more difficult to do that. I've tried not to put myself in panic mode but nothing seems to be getting any better and the outlook is for it to get worse.

H9

dkg999

Yep, it's pretty grim. I'm very selective about what news sources I watch or view. Bad news is good news from a media standpoint, so that's where the emphasis is. The upside is that our gov leaders have to move quickly to resolve the economic situation, because they have to as a survival strategy. Not sure everything they plan to do and implement is a good long term thing, but hopefully it moves the bubble the right direction.

Now that 2% interest mortgage re-fi plan has me thinking I should put my house in default so I make sure I qualify. I have two associates that have already banked a couple of months of mortgage payments and penalties so their houses are in default and they can qualify for any hand-outs.

You might as well buy a vehicle from the US big 3, because you're probably buying one via your taxes whether you like it or not!

KrazyMofo24

It's not as good as it once was, and a lot of bad things in the economy has happened. However it can be a lot worse, we still have it pretty good as a population compared to most countries. Also its still possible for things to get better. I am not that confident in it getting better soon. I am hoping for the best.

Early B.

polkatese wrote: »

One last question, has anyone ever tried to ignore the news completely?

I have been ignoring the news for the past ten years. I NEVER watch the news. The only way I keep current is if it's posted on the Polk Forum or if I stumble across an interesting news story on the msn home page.

Imagine listening to 30 minutes of depressing news every day for your entire life. That's gotta make you crazy or cynical or both.

bruss

dkg999 wrote: »

Now that 2% interest mortgage re-fi plan has me thinking I should put my house in default so I make sure I qualify. I have two associates that have already banked a couple of months of mortgage payments and penalties so their houses are in default and they can qualify for any hand-outs.

i hope your associates take it in the **** for being greedy ****..

wizzy

Early B. wrote: »

Imagine listening to 30 minutes of depressing news every day for your entire life. That's gotta make you crazy or cynical or both.

Amen, that's my take. I watch some news in the background sometimes, but most stuff (especially network news, and local news) is just the thirty minutes of crap.

Half the time it's not only depressing, bad news, but it's also bad news that really shouldn't be worthy of airing nationally.

heiney9

As far as news. It's a lot like audio..........one has to be informed from several different sources and take a lot of "hype" with a grain of salt and understand like DKG stated......bad news is good news as far as ratings and keeping a captive audience.

I read/listen to several different sources as well as have discussions with family, friends, co-workers and small business owners. If you watch one and only one source you're probably holed up in an underground shelter with all your cash and valuables in a safe muttering nonsense to yourself slowly going crazy.

It's bad out there..................so far we've weathered worse as a nation, but it's still scary and one does need to be informed; so the whole not paying any attention, IMO, is doing yourself a huge disservice.

YMMV

H9

dkg999

bruss wrote: »

i hope your associates take it in the **** for being greedy ****..

While normally I would agree, my views have been moderated based on the fact that hard working people who live their lives in a good way, pay their bills, etc. were really screwed over by all this sub-prime, loan money to people who haven't paid their bills, etc. mess. I'll let those with perfect lives start throwing the first stones.

PhantomOG

dkg999 wrote: »

While normally I would agree, my views have been moderated based on the fact that hard working people who live their lives in a good way, pay their bills, etc. were really screwed over by all this sub-prime, loan money to people who haven't paid their bills, etc. mess. I'll let those with perfect lives start throwing the first stones.

Precisely why a bailout for the Big3 won't work. You're only rewarding bad behaviour. Its like giving a drug addict cash, you know they are just going to waste it so what's the point?

zingo

A lady from my work wrote an Op-Ed piece for our local paper on an experience where she was helped by a few people in the community, just to put something readable in the paper. It's not so much "no news is good news", more like "good news isn't news".

sucks2beme

News, hell. It's hard talking to people. There's a customer site
that's being outsourced to Mexico( tech support).
There's a bunch of guys there I've known for years, including some
I worked with at another company back in the 80's.

Co-workers, my last boss have lost jobs where I'm at in the
last month. Gloom all over.

I talked to my wife's old boss of
10 years ago(account manager) at the grocery store. He
thinks he's getting the axe in the new year.
Ho, ho, ho my arse. I may need to call my mom and starting
taking notes about living in the depression.

polkatese

btw, all these so called "smart" people in Washington who are supposed to work on these problems (i.e. Henry Paulson, and the like), with their guaranteed $300k/year + compensations (I know, he makes much much more than that, but I am making a general point) for life, do you think they loose sleep over these economic problems? What is boiled down to (IMHO) is in defining the word "crisis." If they can't internalized to their own situations, how real is their efforts to resolve the crisis? It won't affect their families, nor their lifestyles.

ND13

Most people will see things differently once it hits home.

fossy

Early B. wrote: »

I have been ignoring the news for the past ten years. I NEVER watch the news. The only way I keep current is if it's posted on the Polk Forum or if I stumble across an interesting news story on the msn home page.

Imagine listening to 30 minutes of depressing news every day for your entire life. That's gotta make you crazy or cynical or both.

+1 --

Unfortunately alot of ppl thrive on bad news & therefore the crap that is on the news will keep coming.:cool::cool:

dkg999

Maybe "we the people" should ask our elected leaders and sr gov officials to work for $1 a year? Getting their previous salaries back would be tied to a scorecard based on economic performance.

treitz3

^^^Not bad. Not bad at all.^^^ :cool:

Early B.

dkg999 wrote: »

Maybe "we the people" should ask our elected leaders and sr gov officials to work for $1 a year? Getting their previous salaries back would be tied to a scorecard based on economic performance.

Wouldn't work. Many of them are millionaires anyway, so the salary they make as elected officials is nothing. They make the really big money from accepting bribes and kickbacks.

bruss

or maybe by making real good examples out of corrupt politicians and executives..

Send Ted Stevens and others like him to General Population in leavenworth for starters. Start holding these dudes feet to the fire..

Polksaladanni

Man, Lighten up people!

We will all be living in cardboard boxes soon enough.

Carrying our Polks under our arms.

Paul

mantis

You know I am one of those people who lost there jobs due to there company going under. it's a bad place to be. It's also incredibly depressing. I feel for every single person who is going through what I did. I don't wish that on anyone. When I got laid off, I searched the Internet, talked to fellow employees, tried to keep up to date with what is going on with my company and the world. It just about gave me a nervous breakdown. I felt sick to my stomach all the time. Then one day I decided to not let it beat me. And it didn't.

It's like a train wreck that you know is coming but you don't wanna look.

As far as watching the news, I never was big on doing so. I would watch and get depressed because in Phila, Pa there always seems to be a fire, a robbery , someone got shot , etc. It seemed like every time I turned on the news or picked up the paper, this is what I experienced. So over the last 15 years , I tried to back off from being up to date with the world and live in my small piece of it. Then 911 came around and the news exploded, I was worried about that whole thing as I live pretty close to NYC.

Then the entire war thing over the years, how depressing is it to watch and learn about that. This should have been over years ago.

So whats next , gas starts to go up and up causing all kinds of problems from soup to nuts. No matter what, it effected everyone one way or another.

Now the new great depression as I call it. The way the United States is right now and you can add in the rest of the world if you like just flat out sucks.

With Christmas right around the corner , it's very difficult to get into the spirit and enjoy the Holiday. I really didn't enjoy Thanksgiving the way I usually do as I have so much on my mind. I landed a new position with a pretty great company and I'm so thankful for it. With so many people out of work, I feel so lucky. I know my skill , personality and years of experience helped me get the new position but I can't help feeling fortunate. So many other people from Tweeter are wondering around not knowing what to do. One of my good friends and fellow Installer from Tweeter who should have a job in this field just had a new baby weeks before we went out of business. He is not having good luck finding a new position as no one is hiring around here. I went tri state looking for work and a lot of companies wanted to have me but had no room for me. They all claimed to be feeling what's going on and are all thinking or down sizing. Not taking on any new Installers. Years ago I would go around to all these audio video places in my area and pretty much be offered a job once they found out who I was. That same ability is so gone now. Years ago Installers where extremely hard to find let alone good ones. Now this market is flooded with them now that Tweeter is out and there is no where for them to go. I hate it.

Sorry for the rant but all this hits home hard. I don't feel myself and I'm worried about everything. Even after I got my new position I'm still worried. We seem to be doing just fine, business as usual and I hope that the Shock from Tweeter is what's still eating at me. It doesn't effect my work other then I feel I'm a step or 2 behind myself. I account that to being new to the company and learning to do things there way. When you spend 9 years with a company , you get comfortable with the way you do your job. Then when you go somewhere else and they do things a lot different, it's a challenge. What's funny is I feel this company does a lot of things better. I also love the small business model so much more.

You know inside of me tell me that all this is necessary . The world needs change. People need change. We all need to take a look in the mirror once in awhile and check ourselves. The big 3 auto companies need to do this. Getting back to the American way of yesterday. you know earning a honest living is something to be proud of. Feeling thankful everyday for your health , your family , friends is Priceless. Coming home after a long day of honest work is rewarding. I think here in America , A lot of people got away from that. Look at the crime rate, think about how many people you have worked with you hate there jobs for all the wrong reason. All the people who feel they should be making more but don't work hard or honest to earn that right.What every happened to taking pride in your work? Where are all the craftsmen? Honestly people I think everything that is going on in the world is a wake up call. We collectively need to better ourselves if we want to turn things around. It takes all of us to work together to make America the land that it was created to be. Take it out of darkness and bright it to the light.

Dan

ben62670

I agree Dan.

fatchowmein

It's the unknown and future uncertainty that's troublesome. For those who lost their jobs, where do they go, what do they do next? For those who haven't, do they zig or zag to avoid the oncoming train? Right now, I think we're all pretty much rubber necking at the news.

I'm glad it's the holiday season. Spending time with friends and family help a lot.

tonyb

C'mon guys.......bad news??? Hell,even in good times,the media creates,or goes out of it's way to find....bad news.Depression has been linked to too much watching of TV.
So I suggest to you,turn off the TV,turn on some tubes,listen to music,spend some quality time with those you love,help those who are in need,work on being a better person,for yourself,and those around you.Happy people are happy in good times and bad for a reason.Do something nice for the elderly on your block,shovel their snow,bake them some cookies......you get my drift.Don't ever forget why americans are great.We are the most compassionate people when fallen on hard times.One of the best feelings in the world is helping those in need.All right,off the holiday soap box.Off to volunteer at a food pantry today.The wife raised over 2 grand plus tons of food for them.Happy Holidays to all.:)

ben62670

Thanks Tony.

WilliamM2

How much of the news on the economy is just the usual media sensationalism?

The unemployment rate is at 6.7%, interest rates are still low. Anyone remember the late 70's? Things don't seem nearly as bad as they are being portrayed. While I'm sure there are those that have lost jobs, no one I know personally has lost their's yet. And I live in Michigan, one of the poorest performing states in the US.

treitz3

You must not get out much. Either that or you have no friends.

At a Halloween party I attended there were 10 of my friends all standing in a semi-circle and for some reason :rolleyes: the subject of the economy came up. Of those 10 people, 9 of them had either had massive layoffs at where they work, a 20% cut in pay, loss of benefits or experienced all of the above shortly before getting laid off. 9 out of 10 people.

I won't even get into how the economy has devastated my life and business but don't be a fool and kid yourself into thinking that it's not that bad because it is. The unemployment figures you talk of do not reflect the ACTUAL number unemployed. Personally, I believe that the news media isn't really giving us the real juice as to how bad it actually is. I mean, what? Just a week ago they realized/recognized that we were in a recession. Christ's sake, I've known that since last December.

WilliamM2

You must not get out much. Either that or you have no friends.

Or maybe things just haven't changed much in my area. Like I said, I am in Michigan, our economy has been slow for years and years...

MacLeod

I actually think the news media is making out to be WORSE than it really is. And yeah we're in a recession now but we were in one around 2000-2001 and we were in one in the early 90's and the early 80's. It seems these things are cyclical and even tho things are bad in some sectors, I dont think theyre bad overall or even as bad as we've seen before.

For example - 30 states have unemployment at 6% or lower. 4 have 8-9%. 10 have 7-7.6% and the national average unemployment rate is 6.7%.

Now I know this comes as little consolation for those that have been laid off but consider that in the early 80's the unemployment rate was dam near 10% and it was nearly 8% in the early 90's.

I think the reason this one felt so hard is because during the other recessions, gas didnt go up to $4.50 a gallon! So you take a recession AND take an extra $250-400 a month out of your income to pay for gas and you notice and feel it a lot more because unlike government statistics that come out once every 4 months, you feel the price of gas every few days.

I firmly believe we'll come out of this just like we have several times before and we'll be fine just like we have several times before.

obieone

The media's making it out worse than it is, and they have their reasons.
"If it bleeds, it LEADS!"