Thread: How Are You Doing? 40% Lighter Perhaps?

Family Net Worth Fell Almost 40% Between 2007-2010 - Real Time Economics - WSJ

Incomes dropped the most among middle-class families. The wealthiest 10%, by net worth, saw their median income fell 1.4% over the three years, while families in the second and third quartiles experienced a drop of 12.1% and 7.7%, respectively. The lowest quartile’s median income fell by 3.7%.

Meanwhile

Income inequality in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A 2011 study by the CBO^[16] found that the top earning 1 percent of households gained about 275% after federal taxes and income transfers over a period between 1979 and 2007, (although this number has decreased somewhat since 2007 as a result of the Great Recession ^[17]). From 1992 to 2007 the top 400 earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%.^[18] The share of total income in America going to the lower earning 80 percent of American households (also after federal taxes and income transfers) has dropped to less than 1/2 in 2007. ^[19]

What recession?

According to everything I read and hear on the major networks,

we've NEVER had it so good!!!

Who Owns the Media? Media Ownership Charts | Free Press


Massive corporations dominate the U.S. media landscape. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, these companies have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. In many cases, these companies are vertically integrated, controlling everything from initial production to final distribution. In the interactive charts below we reveal who owns what.

The problem with the media, is years ago news was a public service thing and networks competed to provide the best objective coverage and they assumed it to be a loss leader in their operations. That has all changed now and news is expected to be a big money maker so any objectivity is out the window and whatever you need to do be profitable is the order of things.

Remember when Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in the USA ? Or so said the polls. Mark Twain is reputed to have said,"There are lies, there are damned lies, and than there are statistics." My beloved grandfather told me when I was 10 years old, shortly before he died, 'believe half of what you see, and nothing that you read.' At the time, and for some years after, that was as inscrutable as a Zen koan to me. I've lived long enough now to know that, while he was exaggerating, he wasn't far from the truth.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Remember when Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in the USA ? Or so said the polls. Mark Twain is reputed to have said,"There are lies, there are damned lies, and than there are statistics." My beloved grandfather told me when I was 10 years old, shortly before he died, 'believe half of what you see, and nothing that you read.' At the time, and for some years after, that was as inscrutable as a Zen koan to me. I've lived long enough now to know that, while he was exaggerating, he wasn't far from the truth.

I think our grand dads could have been old running buddies. Mine said pretty much the same thing to me, a LONG time ago. He was born in 1906 in the Oklahoma Indian Territory.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.

I worked for a major television network for almost a decade and have been in the entertainment industry for, jeezuz, 35 years. I've been in newsrooms and studios when major stories broke and I've been there during the dog days. The rule of thumb in assembling stories for broadcast is that "if it bleeds, it leads". If there is a week long news series on your local television station revolving around sex, it's probably sweeps week when the ratings are calculated and ad rates are set. I have been involved with news stories, theatre reviews, "events" of various sizes and have written press releases with press agents. I've worked up-fronts. So I've seen the both the raw and the finished product.

One thing I've learned is that there are facts and then there is the news and the two aren't necessarily the same.

Stop and think about it.

Most of what you know about the world is based on what you see on TV or see online. Does it reflect what of importance is really happening? It's just a group of folks who get together each day and decide what the news is that you will see and then they decide how to slant it. With the decreasing importance of good newspapers folks have less and less opportunity to truly learn what is happening around them and more importantly what the real truth is.

Some are worried about the state becoming too powerful when the real truth is their lives are really being lead by corporations brainwashing them at all levels of existance.