A Washington Post columnist downplayed the plight of the millions of Americans who are struggling under high inflation, giving them “seven silver linings” for recession.
“Hey, a recession isn’t all bad news,” Washington Post personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary wrote in what read more like an op-ed than a news story. The headline of the Sept. 28 story was downright insulting to the millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet: “7 ways a recession could be good for you financially.” In her logic, “[A]s bad as things are — rising interest rates, high inflation, stock market tumbling — the economy hasn’t imploded as it did during the Great Depression.”
In other words, don’t worry, be happy! At least America hasn’t reached Great Depression levels of economic instability. Yikes.
“Of course, times are tough — and for some people, much more than others. But remember that fear will not help you make wise financial decisions,” Singletary patronized to her readers. [Emphasis added.]
If that wasn’t bad enough, Singletary quoted former President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inaugural speech in an attempt to convince the American people that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” on recession. But even there, she hedged. “Here are seven silver linings if we are heading into a recession.” [Emphasis added].
She pointed to (1) housing prices, (2) saving rates, (3) the I bonds inflation rate, (4) the dollar, (5) unemployment, (6) used car prices and (7) student loan forgiveness to make her point.
The economy contracted for its second quarter in a row in August, meeting the traditional definition of a recession. But a “recession” means something different in The Washington Post’s universe, it seems.
Singletary continued to give unsolicited advice about the bright side of a recession. “While many people are hurting, there may be ways to cushion the downside,” she wrote.
She continued: “Unemployment is still relatively low. People with jobs and money to spare can spend on luxuries such as a vacation.”
But Brownstone Institute President Jeffrey Tucker blew up the liberal media’s narrative on the “red hot” job market in an August column in The Epoch Times headlined “The Jobs Hoax.” The economy is forcing people to pick up “second and third jobs,” Tucker explained. He later warned against trusting media spin on the economy in an exclusive interview with MRC Business, “so we don’t find ourselves living in an Orwellian world, in which the government is forever broadcasting great news about the great glories of life while people are at home suffering and dying and wondering why their electricity bill is three times what it was six months ago.”
To top it all off, Singletary celebrated President Joe Biden’s legally dubious student loan forgiveness plan, comparing him to Roosavelt using “his executive power to wage war against the economic emergency gripping the United States.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact The Washington Post at 202-334-6000 and demand it quit telling falsehoods to its readers that a “recession could be good” for them “financially.”
