The Sky is Falling?

I’m not immune, nor am I innocent of doom and gloom predictions. I did a public affairs show on the mortgage crisis that ran last week (maybe I’ll put it up later today so you can have a listen), and if you’ve been following the news, the economic forecast for 2008 is not looking good. Besides the real estate market, Wall Street types on TV (24 cable news where the tone of the day, and indeed everyday, is “crisis”)  are freaking out about stocks, bonds, and all the other ways in which they can turn millions in to multi-millions.  Political watchers who also show up on places like CNN, Fox News and the like are enjoying their face time and spinning Iowa wins. And, if you like to watch that, um, rock star Wolf Blitzer on CNN, he had a countdown clock running for the New Hampshire primaries. How exciting!  Want more excitement? Okay! The NY Times has the results of the first vote totals from a tiny town in NH where they start voting at midnight.  Wanna see what they are getting all excited about?

January 8, 2008,  6:30 am

New Hampshire’s First Votes Are In

By Jeff Zeleny

LEBANON, N.H. — The polls are open in New Hampshire, or at least those in the tiny northern hamlet of Dixville Notch, where the voting traditionally commences after the stroke of midnight.

Will it be a sign of things to come later today? We’ll know tonight. Until then, here are the results:

Democrats
Senator Barack Obama 7
John Edwards – 2
Gov. Bill Richardson – 1
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton – 0

Republicans
Senator John McCain – 4
Mitt Romney – 2
Rudolph Giuliani – 1
Fred Thompson – 0
Ron Paul – 0

Polls across the state open at 7 am.

What’s the buzzword for this campaign?  Oh yeah, “change.”  Well, despite all the lip service given to the love of change, if you look at the way in which people react to it in the media, the markets, and on the campaign trail, change isn’t necessarily a good thing — unless you’re a “talking head” on TV whose getting paid to be on news programs.  

Okay, back to that whole “change may not be such a good thing theme…”

Remember the phrase “irrational exuberance” uttered by Alan Greenspan? He was basically saying “You know, the stock market is overpriced.”  Well, it took a few years, but by 2000 the economic clouds were kind of gloomy and then Bush, Cheney and his cronies piled on and did their part to try and “talk down” the economy to make their call for tax cuts look.   Here we are in 2008.  It’s an election year. There’s a power struggle between the usual suspects political parties, and those who benefit from one party or another are doing their part to get you line up for candidate X, Y, or Z. 

Does all this have an effect?  Sure it does!  The crap filters down through the echo chamber and people start to believe the hype. And the people who have control over budgets, hiring and firing, also read the papers, watch TV, and look for advice on the macro trends in politico-economic culture.  In our neck of the woods, there are some layoffs going on and it make we wonder if there’s more coming down the pike. If the doom and gloom predictions keep up, are you worried about your job?