What Mainstream News Sources Get Wrong About Economic Recovery

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The press, author and philosopher Edmund Burke once argued during a parliamentary debate in 1787, is the “Fourth State,” a “societal force” whose powerful influence makes it the perfect tool of the powerful men. All too often, you see this powerful tool being used to shift the blame from government’s intrusive, unproductive policies to taxpayers, in an attempt to make the idea that government always acts with our best interest in mind popular again.

In a recent Washington Post article, Robert J. Samuelson takes American consumers to task for not allowing President Barack Obama administration’s economic recovery plan to work. A comment Zero Hedge’s sassy Tyler Durden does not seem to be very happy about.

In a piece exposing the problems with Samuelson’s article, Zero Hedge claims that Washington Post, or what the author calls an “administration mouthpiece,” goes to the extreme of indirectly accusing Americans of being “stingy” when Samuelson argues that the only drag on the economy is “us.”

Since Americans refuse to go out and buy more stuff, WaPo’s Samuelson claims, “American consumers aren’t what they used to be … and that helps explain the plodding economic recovery.”

But according to Zero Hedge’s author, America’s current economic issues may be traced back to other culprits, such as increasing health insurance premiums and the high cost of property and rentals. Zero Hedge also argues that even when looking at the jobs created over the past few years, it’s easy to see that what has risen recently is the rate of part-time or minimum wage jobs, not full-time work. Should the current administration take pride in that?

Once we look deeper into the issues Americans are currently facing, we become more aware of the roots of the economic problems we, as a nation, have experienced in the past decade, making Samuelson’s claims sound shallow.

Soaring national debt and money printing are two problems that directly affect consumers nowadays, whether they are rich or poor. Both of these problems have been devaluing our dollar, inflating prices, and crushing our money’s overall purchasing power. And both of these issues have been the policies of most of US presidents over the past decades.

While economic intervention is a real problem, it’s not the only thing keeping Americans down. Big government’s overpowering regulations are also adding more fuel to the fire by raising a greater amount of barriers to businesses.

The regulatory burden keeps entrepreneurs with little capital in hand from entering the marketplace, depriving workers and consumers from options. That, Mercatus Center’s Patrick A. McLaughlin argues, contributes to poverty.

Without government’s artificially imposed barriers, the American consumer would have a stronger currency to work with, and the unemployed would have better job opportunities.

Unlike Samuelson claims, Zero Hedge reports, the average American is now broke. Samuelson may miss what was once the “world’s most vibrant middle class,” but he does not know how to get us there.

So instead of asking broke Americans to resort to easy credit—yet another issue with today’s economy—so the current administration’s economic recovery finally “works,” how about taking the individual’s struggle to make ends meet under the thumb of government’s heavy-handed interventionism into consideration next time?