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Letters on Recession

Posted by Connor on March 5th, 2008

I sent out two letters to the editor yesterday: one to the Deseret News, the other to the Daily Herald. Below are the letters as I sent them, with red strikethroughs showing what the editors removed (and green showing what was added).

Deseret News:

~~Saying the ‘R’ word~~ Just say it: Recession

There is a word in our economic vocabulary that has become taboo as of late. Economists and government leaders fear ~~saying the word, as~~ it would decrease “consumer confidence” ~~and cause financial panic to ensue~~.

What is the word ~~I’m referring to~~? Recession.

Depending on whose statistics you prefer to believe, we are either heading into or are already in a recession. Much of the blame is to be laid at the door of Congress and our executive branch, whose careless fiscal and foreign policies have destroyed the dollar and inflated our currency to astronomical proportions.

By one projection, the amount of currency circulating in the economy has risen by 42% in the past two years alone. This new money means that every previously existing dollar is worth less, thus increasing prices and the cost of operating business. It is this result (the cause of which is loose fiscal policy) that creates what we call a recession.

It’s time to start saying the ‘R’ word a little more often, if for nothing else than to wake people up ~~to our economy’s status and induce people to boot out of office the people who got us into this mess~~.

Daily Herald:

“See no recession”

It seems that people are becoming like the three wise monkeys with regard ~~the~~ to the economy. Instead of evil, however, the subject is recession. Thus, people take the stance of “see no recession, hear no recession, speak no recession”.

~~Or, put differently, we have an economic elephant in the room that few are talking about.~~

Yes, we’re in a recession. Some are lucky enough, depending on where they live, to only be entering a recession. But as a whole our economy is performing quite poorly, largely due to the inflated dollar that is spiraling downwards.

We could point fingers all day long (it’s not hard to figure out, once you stop “seeing no recession”), but it would be far more constructive to pursue policies that would aid a weakening economy, support a declining dollar, and reassure the worrisome taxpayer.

How do we start? Stop the printing presses at the Federal Reserve, curb deficit spending, and terminate foreign military adventurism. Those three things, if pursued aggressively, would have an immediate and noticeable positive impact in our economy.

~~As we go to the polls this fall, it’s important to vote for those people advocating a similar economic remedy–not just a “stimulus” that does little to fix the recession.~~

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3 comments so far. Care to chime in?

Interesting, they struck the complete paragraph that really defines inflation. The fact that we have 42% more money now is the real cause of inflation - inflation of the supply of money! This inflation of the supply of money creates the price increase at the consumer level.

The media selectively controls what PTB want us normal people to know. They do this by “gatekeeping’ information. The information we do end up getting in the MSM is either massaged, or outright eliminated.

In this case, the PTB and the MSM don’t want us to know the real cause of inflation - which is directly related to unconstitutional manipulation of the money supply.

Gatekeeping is actually a form of propaganda - even more effective than outright lying to us.

Usually, people who send in editorials to the editor get frustrated, and then give up after a few attempts. They see that they are ineffective in getting their full opinions into print. This is what editors had in mind all along.

I have had similar experiences, and had a revealing email exchange between me and the assistant editor of the Ogden Standard Examiner newspaper. He wrote to me that he agreed with my opinions more than I thought, but unfortunately journalism is more about advertising and gatekeeping than it is about conveying facts. (Yes, he actually used the word gatekeeping!)

I have since given up trying to use the newspapers as a way to get my opinions out to the public via letters to the editor. I don’t want my writings to be “gatekept.”

Thankfully, Connor can use his blog as a means to show the gatekeeping tactics of newspapers. People who think they are abreast of the truth because they read the newspaper are sadly misinformed.

#1 Kelly W. on March 7th, 2008

People who think they are abreast of the truth because they read the newspaper are sadly misinformed.

Thomas Jefferson would agree with that.

#2 Connor on March 7th, 2008

The Daily Herald finally posted my letter, as shown above. I just caught a typo in the first sentence. What’s funny is that they struck two of my sentences, but didn’t catch the typo (if you click on the link to go to their site, you’ll see “the the” in the first sentence, which was an error in my submission). So much for editing!