Reply #38: Don't get so self-absorbed - it's a generic description of long standing applied to many.

[dmallind]

There are legions of DUers who seek out only the negative and pronounce it both true and eternal, while either ignoring or questioning the same metric once it improves. You can see it everywhere, from unemployment data to consumer confidence to stock indices to ISM surveys to exchange rates to trade deficits. In many cases they are negative regardless of which direction they move in (an increasing trade deficit is bad because it means we are buying too mich "plastic consumer crap from China" and exporting nothing, but a shrinking deficit is not because we are exporting more or buying less plastic consumer crap, it's because "nobody has money to spend on basic needs"; an increasing workforce participation is people becoming desperate for income from all family members, but a decreasing rate is not fwewer families becoming desperate, rather it is people becoming discouraged and giving upm - an increase is never though people becoming encouraged to seek work again).


People drawing inferences from only negative data does not mean they are making valid observations about the socio-political landscape as it exists - it means they think the landscape is deteriorating and seek evidence to support that.

Only when people accept both positive and negative results from the same metric on a consistent basis do they draw correct observations from it. Consumer spending is a very clear metric with no wiggle room. The economy improves when it increases and shrinks when it decreases, when properly adjusted and reported. The latter is every bit as valid and credible as the former - everywhere but DU that is.