Selling our Difficult Economic Times

The media has always driven me crazy. Mostly because the fluff and stuff of things we force ourselves to be interested in combined with the over-hyping of what might have been a good story...if it were true...in order to get viewers. I would be willing to bet many if not most or even all of you have fallen prey to this madness as their most common bait and switch is the weather, especially on a slow news day. They promote, using film reel from a snow storm ten years ago, the potential of "bad weather" in order to get you to tune in later for a full forecast when low and behold, there is a 10% chance of snow that rarely holds true. All the while, shoppers swarmed their local Walmart buying them out of bread, milk and snow shovels.

Well, in these difficult economic times, the media has turned its focus on what appears to catch the attention of their consumer these days, our difficult economic times. Tossing the word "economy" into their daily spots to entice viewers to tune in with lead ins like "more news on the economy tonite at 10" in order to maintain ratings, which ironically keeps their economy headed in the right direction. Most viewers then tune in thinking "what now, some other car manufacturer hitting the pavement face first, another mortgage company getting a bail out in order to make good their bonuses for CEOs." Oh no, not that at all. Turns out the promo got you to tune in for a trumped up human interest piece on how a local coffee shop was going to cure the economy through the ever famous "take a penny, leave a penny" tray program.

My wife will tell you that I despise the news. And, well, its true. The news they promote all day, including the damn weather, is never ultimately newsworthy. But like the weather when everyone panics over a mildly true report, the repetitive use of the economy as a lead in, only deepens Americans fears that the economy is bad and only getting worse. Its only made out to be news you might be interested in for the purpose of ratings. No ratings, no commercials. No commercials, no news program and to an end, no profit. Even in this difficult economic time, money still makes the world go around and media outlets are not non-profit organizations. So remember before you tune in next time that you are a customer being sold a bill of goods. In these difficult economic times, I suggest you save your money and tune them out.

Difficult Economic Times the new WMD

Weapons of mass destruction, or better known as WMDs, were a permanent fixture on newspaper headlines and television newscasts when we were told that these WMDs were going to cause us great harm if we didn't act immediately. Today's weapon of mass destruction is the heightened awareness of our economy, our Difficult Economic Times or DETs. In fact, the DETs have become more devastating to America today than the WMDs ever were. I mean, we never actually seen the WMDs, did we?

Add to the fact that the government has spent a great deal of tax payer money on fighting the DETs much like they did fighting the WMDs as further evidence that we have a new threat on our hands. But are the DETs more real than the WMDs or just more damaging?

For a cattle farmer in Oklahoma to a waitress in Atlanta or even a shoe salesman in Seattle, the DETs are the equivalent to land mines in their every day life. These landmines, however are tricky, as only one in every ten are charged, you see the media drops these little bombs in mass, laying them across our daily path. The fear alone of stepping on one of these mines, however, are enough to cause widespread panic that eventually effects everyone.

The sorry angle to this post is that the DETs are the result of friendly fire hitting us where it hurts the worse, the pocket book.

A new challenge in the face of these difficult economic times

In overall acceptance and by no means a slap in the face of someone who has actually lost a job or some money in the stock market, I feel it is time to present a new challenge during these difficult economic times. Trust me, it'll be fun and will allow you to see just how ridiculous the propaganda surrounding our economic times has become. So, here it goes..it's easy, really.

For the balance of 2009, I suggest for everything we say, write, text, chat or instant message that you simply add the words "in these difficult economic times" somewhere within the content. Here are some examples:

"I need to go to the restroom in these difficult economic times"

"Kids...settle down back there or I'll turn this car around in these difficult economic times"

"The Lakers beat the Celtics by 3 in these difficult economic times"

"Their calling for rain this weekend in these difficult economic times"

"Where would you like to eat tonite in these difficult economic times"

"Honey, have you seen my other sock in these difficult economic times"

"Dad, can you help me with my math homework in these difficult economic times"

"Oppss...I'm late to work writing this blog in these difficult economic times"

Try it, its fun and everyone else is doing it!

Difficult Economic Times & Climbing

In today's economy or the preferred media preface "in these difficult economic times" officially stuck the landing on a nerve that can no longer be tolerated, my last one. I just dared myself to gauge the number of references to the dreaded phrase in Google which returned 82,800,000 results. More than Barrack Obama, which presently registers 1,430,000. That's not twice as many, not four times as much, but rather 57 times as many.

I searched a few others to illustrate how out of hand this phrase has become.

In These Difficult Economic Times - 82,800,000
Disney World - 32,900,000
Brad Pitt - 29,700,000
Jessica Simpson - 30,900,000
Tiger Woods - 16,900,000
Global Warming - 34,900,000
Hybrid Cars - 8,900,000
Alternative Fuels - 24,200,000

I'll check back in a few weeks to gauge it again. I can promise you that it will continue to grow as the phrase has ironically become the bread and butter for the media to capture the attention of its partons.