IT'S 'Official' . . . finally!
- By l.t. Dravis
- Published 12/1/2008
l.t. Dravis
I created and have written the nationally distributed marketing newsletter, BOTH SIDES NOW, since 2003. I authored two books, BOTH SIDES NOW, Sell Like Professional Athletes Win and DEATH OF A SALES MANAGER. In 2008, I introduced a daily column for national syndication to newspapers.
Tony Fratto – Bush Deputy Press Secretary
Photo Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
By l.t. Dravis
This brilliant deduction came in the form of an
announcement by an organization that calls itself the National Bureau of
Economic Research (NBER) (http://www.nber.org/info).
NBER announced today that December, 2007 was
when the economy went into recession; a recession which evidently precipitated
the economic slide into the current financial crisis, culminating in
September’s Wall Street meltdown and subsequent economic problems.
Who supports the National Bureau of Economic
Research?
Well, don’t worry . . . you don’t.
NBER likes to say that it’s a non-profit,
non-partisan research group dedicated to helping Americans understand how the economy
functions.
Okay.
The NBER has been around since 1920 and is
quite proud of the fact that it has produced 31 Nobel Prize Winners, 6 Chairs
of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a thousand or so
professors of economics and business teaching in universities all over the
country.
Sounds good . . . but with all due respect to
the NBER, thousands of people who lost their jobs a year ago could have told us
– way back then- that we were in a recession.
All sorts of people in George W. Bush’s
Administration with access to more economic data than you or me have yammered
on and on about some sort of economic problem facing the nation at least since
March; but not one of those people had the character or integrity to dare to
use the “R” word.
Despite the fact that the 43rd
President of the United States and all the people he considers to be the best
and the brightest the nation has to offer wouldn’t be honest about something
the entire world already knows says more about character and integrity than I
could ever explain.
However, if it is true that we can’t change
what we won’t acknowledge, why wouldn’t the President, Vice-President, all
their advisors, and all the Cabinet Secretaries who accept our money and
benefits come clean with us in time to fix the economy before it ‘melted-down’?
If the Bush Administration hadn’t been so
concerned about covering its collective butt, it could have taken steps at the
time, on time, in time, to prevent the collapse of Wall Street, the banking
industry, the auto industry, and other industries that are laying off American
men and women at the rate of 500,000 each week, every week.
Now, I admit I shouldn’t be so one-sided . . .
it’s just that I hate to see people lose their jobs through no fault of their
own.
So I’ll give the Bush White House the benefit
of the doubt and ask a fair question; How did the Bush White House react to the
NBER’s announcement?
No . . . the White House made a political
statement.
The Bush Administration sent Deputy Press
Secretary Tony Fratto, 42, (a well-connected Republican . . . former spokesman
for ex-Senator Rick Santorum, former campaign worker for Tom Ridge’s
re-election as Pennsylvania Governor, and lobbyist who was rewarded by George
W. Bush with a position as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the
Treasury Department and then re-rewarded by George W. Bush who named him Deputy
Press Secretary in 2006) out to dismiss the fact that the nation has been in a
recession for a year by saying, “The most important things we can do for the
economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal and
to continue to make progress in housing and that’s where we’ll continue to
focus.”
What?
What does that mean?
We have to ‘return the financial and credit
markets to normal’?
Why the heck would we do that?
A year ago the financial and credit markets
were normal and look where that’s gotten us!
By the way, what did you mean when you said, “continue
to make progress in housing”?
Ask home builders and home owners to tell you
about the ‘progress’ they see and they’ll ask, “What progress?”
I gotta tell you, Mr. Deputy Press Secretary,
I’m disappointed.
The taxpayers of this great nation pay you
$141,000.00 per year ($11,750.00 per month; $2,937.50 per week), plus cushy
benefits they can’t afford for themselves.
Yet, where were you a year ago?
Why didn’t you or one of your highly-paid,
well-benefited colleagues on the White House roster earn your pay by coming
clean with the people who pay you? Why didn’t you admit then what the
President, the Vice-President, advisors, plus Cabinet members were too chicken
to admit . . . that we were in a recession?
Wait a second . . . since we just discovered
that we’re running a year behind on ‘official’ economic news, could we already
be out of the recession and not know it?
I could ask the NBER or I could ask Tony Fratto
. . . or I could ask one of the half million Americans who lost their jobs last
week.
Who do you think would know best?
Huh?
Copyright © 2008 by LTD
Associates West, Ltd.
All rights reserved.
