Democratic Economies

Marketwatch.com recently posted an article about our failing economy and, shockingly, cut the eternal neocon spin you find in all corporate media economy stories. If the Washington press corps was half this honest, McSame would be 30 points down.

How's this gem?

"This is going to be felt much more today than it was in the 1970s, partly because of how companies interact with their employees. In the 1970s, companies were willing to pay their employees a few percentage points more to beat inflation. But today in the era of downsizing and outsourcing, this has not happened."

For years, the corporate media has operated under the cardinal rule that downsizing and outsourcing should always be put in the following context: US companies are forced to downsize and outsource to stay competitive. Whether it was blamed on lazy workers, unions, OSHA, environmentalists, or Bill Clinton; it must always be presented as necessary and fair and NEVER as a method of funneling money from the middle class to the wealthy.

Here we have an example, not explicitly of course, but implied that companies downsize due to greed. The implied meaning of the above is: a company that squeezes every last dime out its workers through downsizing and outsourcing sure as hell isn't going to give them a raise when their pay falls due to inflation. Why would they? Falling wages means bigger wealth transfer.

Now, this article also mentions the election and one statement might send up a red flag:

"To the average person on the street, the economy feels and looks better under a Democrat. For a company, it is slightly better off under a Republican."

The acknowledgement that a Democratic President results in a better economy should be common sense, but it is rarely acknowledged by the corporate media. It's not in their interest, the best monopolies and anti-consumer de-regulation comes from Republicans. So, to say the amoral, non-human "company" is better off with Republicans is true enough -- but it would normally bother me. The media already buys into the idea that a corporation has human rights, such as free speech; and that is a ridiculous notion despite flawed SCOTUS rulings supporting that abomination.

Despite any slight misgivings with that one sentence; the following facts posted in this article just blow me away. Not that they are true and exist; but that any corporate media entity would have the balls to print them. Some editor somewhere must have been asleep at the switch to let this get by him/her:

"Q: What effects do you expect the national elections will have on the economy?

A: I believe the differences between the candidates in this election are as great as the differences between conservative Ronald Reagan and liberal Jimmy Carter in 1980.
Historically, the economy performs better when a Democrat is in the White House than when a Republican is president.

Here are some examples, by my calculations, for full four-year periods from 1948 through 2004:

Unemployment has averaged 4.6% when a Democrat is in the oval office and 6.2% under a Republican administrator.
The stock market has risen 46% under a Democratic president and 32% with a Republican in the Oval Office.
The U.S. budget deficit has averaged $11 billion under a Democratic president, compared with $163 billion when the president was a Republican.
The trade deficit has averaged $83 billion when a Democrat was in the White House and $117 billion under a Republican president."

Economist offers outlook, describes why inflation hits harder now - MarketWatch