Recession and Thinking Long-Term

Today the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that we have been in recession since December of last year. During the last year, however, politicians and the MSM seemed to do everything they could to conceal the truth.

Maybe it was in the context of the election — think “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” — or in the interest of not shaking the timid Mr. Dow Jones. But wouldn’t it have been a better decision for the country if the media and those in power had laid this out straight in the beginning? Then people could have saved for this Christmas and prepared better for the future. If we were told earlier, we could have made way more prudent choices in 2008. Where was the National Bureau of Economic Research all this year?

I am aware that up-to-date data is difficult to round up and analyze, and that negative numbers adversely affect the numbers on Wall Street, but looking back, it seems like this lack of information has worked harder to exacerbate our economic situation than to protect and increase investment.

Fortunately, Americans saw these problems on the horizon in their own lives and change won on Nov. 4. The implications of this decision, however, will be interesting to see. (Which way will Obama go? It seemed from his campaign that we would see investment in America and Americans, but with his recent Cabinet appointments and rumors of retaining the Bush tax cuts, the status quo may live on.)

But it is very concerning to me. The people we trust to keep us informed and protect us from harm skirted their responsibilities in order to keep us on the wrong track (it doesn’t surprise me). We need our elected officials and our “free press” to give us the right information in a timely manner. Lying to us may keep you in power in the short term, but America can’t continue this short-term thinking. We need to come out ahead in the long run (the Big Three automakers and business in general also needs to learn this important lesson).