Media madness November 20, 2008
Posted by Graham in : General , trackbackIf you had been listening to RTE radio 1 this morning you would have been treated to a great example of media double-think and extreme “disconnect”, as Kunstler might say.
On the one hand, we had a genuine gloom-and-doom story at the top of the news with the reporting of the visit to Ireland of a member of the International Energy Agency and their report that oil output from the world’s 400 major oil fields is expected to decline by a staggering 9%;
on the other hand we had Joe Duffy on Liveline encouraging service stations around the country to phone in if they have dropped the price of a litre of petrol to below one euro- which some of them have.
“We can beat this recession! As the price comes down at the pumps more people will buy petrol, which means that more money will go into the government coffers in tax, which will allow the government to spend more and break the recession” claimed Duffy with great hurrahs.
Unfortunately, the drop in oil price will surley be only temporary, and although the market will likely be highly volatile in the months to come, $200 a barrel could be with us soon, followed by actual shortages at the pumps. Ultimately, the recession is a result of declining physical resources in the real world, and there is no way we can pump our way out of recession by more consumption- a truly, grotesquely Orwellian concept.
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But Joe knows it’ll work - remember when he told people not to trust the banks and put their savings under the mattress? Brian Lenihan had to intervene because apparently Duffy nearly single handedly caused the collapse of the Irish banking system… no doubt his €367,804 a year salary was under threat unless he promised to pump up the economy for FF with his powerful rhetoric…. (more detail on Joe at Wikipedia)
…on a similar note - on the morning of the Obama win I was listening to RTE 1 and they had an interview with Eamon Ryan at about 6.45am - his only comment was (and I paraphrase) “I think it’s great [the Obama win] - he’s the real deal - a genuine man. I believe that he is the person we need to put confidence back into global markets and get the world economy moving again.” I would like to say I was shocked and appalled - but as the Irish Green Party is a party that is for economic growth it came as no surprise. But it did remind me (a) why I don’t listen to the radio much and (b) why I’ll never vote Green again unless they categorically denounce economic growth as a cornerstone of their policies.
Thanks for telling us the real dirt on Duffy ,Tom, I wasnt aware of any of that. Just shows the power of the media- and I for one dont remember voting for the man.
I listen to the radio more to see what the zeitgeist is- what the masses are being fed as “news” and “opinion”- but there is some good content buried sometimes surprisingly between the dross.
And I absolutely agree with you re the greens- whatever else they may be doing or supporting, it will come to nothing unless they start tackling the growth issue head on.