Economic Reporting Sets New Low; Get Next Year's News Now

U.S. Accelerates in 2011 as Demise of Consumer Is Exaggerated

The above is the title of what is currently the lead article on Bloomberg.com (about midnight Eastern time).

I had to get this post up before the headline changes. This is what passes for news these days in the mainstream media. This article is dated September 13, but the year is 2010. This is "prequel" reporting. The Internet Age has made a further advance, it would appear.

Here is further nonsense from the article's introductory paragraphs:

U.S. Accelerates in 2011 as Demise of Consumer Is Exaggerated
By Rich Miller

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Reports of the demise of the U.S. consumer have been exaggerated.

Households are reducing their debts and building savings faster than he anticipated, said Richard Berner, co-head of global economics for Morgan Stanley in New York, giving them more room to spend in the future.

In conjunction with the intro paragraphs, the message appears to be that those wily and strong-willed American consumers are restricting their consumption this year so they can go whole hog next year. Sort of like a sine wave.

I don't think so. Does the obesity epidemic suggest that the American consumer can cut back at will unless absolutely forced to do so?

The article gets "better". Robert Doll - a man for whom "perma-bull" is almost too weak a term - makes an entrance early on in the article and is quoted as saying:

“The U.S. consumer is not dead.”

Thanks for that insight, Bob!

Regular readers of this blog need not read the entire article. Clearly the title shows that it is another puff piece, just a more idiotic one than usual. Even Michael Bloomberg has no idea what will happen with the economy next year.

When the Fed feels forced to monetize massive amounts of government debt, and said government is keeping consumer spending going with such measures as having over 40 million Americans receive food stamps and over 50 million Americans receive Medicaid, the economic times are out of joint.

It's hard enough to figure out what happened last year. Reporting this year on hoped-for good news from next year is bad "news".

Copyright (C) Long Lake LLC 2010