« First-grader pulling a knife on classmate "is by no means normal" | Main | Man drives pickup truck onto hood of ex-wife's car »
People are still overweight, so we can't be in a recession!
Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan has a hard time believing that times are that tough. "When you free yourself from media and go outside for a walk, everything looks ... the same," she writes. "Everyone is dressed the same. Everyone looks as comfortable as they did three years ago, at the height of prosperity. The mall is still there, and people are still walking into the stores and daydreaming with half-full carts in aisle 3. Everyone's still overweight." (Wall Street Journal)December 3, 2008 | Permalink
Comments
Maybe if she stopped shilling for Republicans and took a look at places outside of Washington D.C., she might see a different America.
Posted by: Mike | Dec 3, 2008 7:35:10 AM
Yeah, and there's no such thing as global warming, Elvis is working in a McDonalds in Rock KS and Oswald worked alone.
Posted by: Russ | Dec 3, 2008 7:38:26 AM
People are overweight because junk food and the unhealthy stuff is cheaper than organic food and foods that are better for you. Duh. Now where are my french fries?
Posted by: Miss Curly | Dec 3, 2008 7:40:36 AM
The Stock Market crashed in 1929. If you look at movies, you don't see any indication of it until 1931. The years between 1932 and 1935 were the bleakest. Everything was looking better by mid-1938.
Posted by: Torgo | Dec 3, 2008 7:42:03 AM
People are overweight because junk food and unhealthy food is cheaper than organic food and the healthier food. Duh. Now where are my french fries?
Posted by: Miss Curly | Dec 3, 2008 7:42:44 AM
And Peggy Noonan is still an idiot.
You're right. Things haven't changed.
Posted by: mak | Dec 3, 2008 7:46:41 AM
It's because junk food and unhealthy food is cheaper than the organic food and healthier food. Duh. Now, where are my french fries?
Posted by: Miss Curly | Dec 3, 2008 7:48:15 AM
Fatties will keep eating regardless...chow down fatties!!!!
Posted by: AlGore | Dec 3, 2008 7:48:57 AM
Well... when there is bad times, actually people do put on weight, because they eat cheap food. Healthy food such as fresh fruit, veggies, lean meats are more expensive, than the generic mac and cheese and other cheap sources of carbs.
The columnist probably also agreed with Senator Graham when he told America that we were in a "mental recession; its all in our heads."
Would love to see that same person tell all those folks that just got laid off this week that its "all in their heads..."
Posted by: Rat | Dec 3, 2008 7:49:49 AM
aha, the rabble can still stuff their gaping craws full of cakes and fatback. What a bunch of whiners, inflamed by the rhetoric of the "Media" and the Congress and their magically vanishing Retirement Plans, and the foreclosed Homes in their Neighborhood and the Labor Department's statistics on Job Loss and and and...Silly Rabble! MWAAAAAGHHHH!
Posted by: sometimesilie | Dec 3, 2008 7:56:41 AM
plus if you compare many American towns to villages in Somalia, we'll see that Americans are actually quite fortunate. Because we are all so familiar with long cherished and venerable Ameri-Somali benchmark of economic prosperity. It's what the founding fathers cited when they were writing the Bill of Rights.
Posted by: sometimesilie | Dec 3, 2008 7:59:08 AM
Mike, from her bio on her Web site: "She lives in New York City." Apparently, she is looking outside of DC.
I don't totally disagree with what she is saying. YES--right now, everyone is nervous, but succumbing to that will make what everyone fears a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jim Kramer, from MSNBC's "Mad Money", has a pretty good track record of seeing what is to come, and he said yesterday, on "Today", that we need to take the "D-word" out of our vocabulary. I may change my tune in six months-a year, and you can all crucify me then, but I'm going to suck it up, watch my spending, and hope I don't lose my job, and hopefully, come out okay on the other side!
Posted by: troschne | Dec 3, 2008 8:00:29 AM
She needs a foot in the ass, and this is from someone who voted for McCain. What a rube.
Posted by: Moose | Dec 3, 2008 8:02:02 AM
THERE IS NEVER AN END TO THESE FRACTURED FACTS FOR SURE.
Posted by: MONKEY JERK | Dec 3, 2008 8:02:23 AM
She's a moron, and I say this as a Republican.
Posted by: Moose | Dec 3, 2008 8:02:46 AM
Apparently, she wasn't at Wal-Mart on black Friday. When people are that desparate for discounts, something's wrong.
Posted by: twerp | Dec 3, 2008 8:07:42 AM
Miss Curly beat me to it - eating well with good cuts of meat and vegetables and fish is expensive. McD's is cheap.
That said, I truly believe that poor now doesn't mean what poor used to. Most everyone has a television set. Many have cable. People seem to cut expenses in pretty strange ways in my opinion. Back when I was scrimping to pay for college I didn't have a phone, TV, or stereo. I used to regularly have dinner for $1.96 (bagel + can of soup + tax). You go back to 1932 and poor people had next to nothing including food of any sort that didn't come from a food bank and yet I saw a homeless guy last week with a cell phone!
Posted by: Drake Timbershaft | Dec 3, 2008 8:14:15 AM
I suppose this article is an example of "Sample Bias". As in, she goes to stores and sees people buying things. Well, duh. I would suppose the people that aren't buying things wouldn't be in the stores. But that is just me, I guess.
Oh, and she gets in a plane and sees people traveling. Really?? Wow.
Posted by: Sigh | Dec 3, 2008 8:16:30 AM
twerp, I think what happened last Friday would have happened no matter what the economy--that kind of idiocy has been going on for YEARS.
Posted by: troshne | Dec 3, 2008 8:17:18 AM
twerp, I think what happened last Friday would have happened no matter what the economy--that kind of idiocy has been going on for YEARS.
Posted by: troshne | Dec 3, 2008 8:17:19 AM
Sorry for the double-post--didn't take my finger off of my mouse soon enough.
Posted by: troschne | Dec 3, 2008 8:17:55 AM
People didn't trample that poor Wal-mart worker to death because they were desperate for discounts. They trampled him to death as he tried to help the pregnant woman because they were greedy, selfish, unconcerned, low-life, trashy pigs.
Posted by: Sheila | Dec 3, 2008 8:23:04 AM
Did I just see Peggy Noonan praise the social safety net, after spending most of her career congratulating her fellow Rethugs for doing their damnedest to destroy it? These *are* the days of miracles and wonders.
But lest you think that Reagan's favorite speechwriter has been replaced by a pod person, apparently she thinks the economic downturn is all in our heads because her well-off neighborhood looks the same as ever, there are still fat people, and noone has yet been sighted wearing patched knickers. Yup, the headache I got when I read my 201k (formerly a 401k) statement *is* all in my head. Next thing you know, she'll be telling all of us "whiners" in the Real Economy(tm) who can't afford bread to eat cake. (Or, in the case of urban hipsters, cupcakes.)
Posted by: Phranqlin | Dec 3, 2008 8:33:39 AM
Peggy Noonan says if you all would shut your mouth and quit whining you could wax her limousine. There's $5 in it for you!
(p.s.- bet you any terms this harpy hasn't ever been to my neighborhood. Guess the increase in robbery's of all kinds (attributed to the *sagging economy* by my local police force) has nothing to do with anything either. Shriek on, harpy!
Posted by: sometimesilie | Dec 3, 2008 8:37:32 AM
Well, she wasn't really praising the social safety net. She was saying that things won't get better until we Margaret Thatcheratize ourselves. The way I read it was that she thought that the safety net will keep us from suffering and, therefore, keep us from recovering.
To some extent she is right -- people in their 'comfort zones' are reluctant to change. We will see it on the way down ("What?!! I'll just DIE without my twice-daily tripple mocha vente latte frappucino"), and on the way back up ("No one will ever hire me, time to kill myself").
This is related to the tendency to over-panic on the downturn and over-celebrate on the upturns ('irrational exuberance'). Oh well, time to panic. Last one out of the camp gets eaten by the bear (market).
Posted by: Sigh | Dec 3, 2008 8:43:43 AM
