To be published in Arabic for Arrabi21
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There is perhaps no better evidence that the media is controlled by corporate interests and the super-rich than the way the media reports economic crises.
The first indicator of economic health, according to popular media, is the performance of the stock market. If the stock market goes up; the economy is doing well. If the stock market goes down; the economy is in crisis. OK, this alone illustrates a disconnection from reality. To put it simply; if the stock market goes up, people who own stocks get richer. If the stock market goes down; people who own stocks lose money. So, the obvious question here would be, “who owns stocks”?
Well, generally speaking, not the population. In fact, the richest 10% of the population owns over 90% of the stocks.
So, actually, a drop in the stock market simply means loss for the richest 10-20% of the people, not the majority.
Most people measure the health of the economy by whether or not they have jobs, whether or not they can afford to pay for electricity, water, and food and shelter; most people measure the health of the economy by whether or not they can afford medical care without going bankrupt , and so on.
These are issues which the media does not consider relevant, and these are issues which have almost no connection whatsoever to the performance of the stock market, except insofar as a company’s stock may tend to go up if it successfully trims costs by laying off workers, or improves profits by raising prices for average consumers, or shifts production jobs overseas, etc, etc.
The things that usually make the stock market go up are things that usually make the real economic conditions of the population go down.
Of course, the theory is that if the super-rich make more money, if companies make more profit, they will use that money to create jobs, invest in new enterprises, and there will be a “trickle-down effect” that will benefit the economy as a whole. At this point, though, we should call this a myth rather than a theory. Prosperity does not trickle downwards, it consolidates where it is, and flows upwards. Always has, always will.
The top CEOs in America make 10 times more than they made 30 years ago. Today, they are paid an average of 300 times more than a typical employee of their companies, while the salaries of those employees have barely changed, and indeed, have often decreased.
The wealth of the top .1% has steadily increased, while the wealth of the rest of the population has steadily declined, until such drastic income disparity exists today that in the US the top 3 percent now hold over double the wealth of America’s poorest 90 percent of families. No trickle down there; and of course, no media panic.
The media covers the economy with a clear bias, expressing the skewed vision of their wealthy owners; the shareholders of General Electric, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, NewsCorp, etc, and their advertisers.
So, just be aware, the crises reported by the media, and any recoveries they may declare, have nothing to do with the real economy.