The Talk Doctrine
by digby
Greg Sargent found an interesting little factoid in the NYT poll that someone should pass on to the White House:
The poll finds that economic pessimism is at its highest level yet, with the level of those who think the economy is getting worse jumping 13 points in the last month — and 57 percent disapprove of Obama’s economic performance.
At the same time, buried in the internals is a number that shows that the public doesn’t buy the argument that reining in the deficit will do anything to create jobs:
What effect do you think a major reduction in the annual federal budget deficit would have on the number of jobs in the U.S. — would it create jobs, would it cost jobs, or would it have no effect on job creation in the U.S.?
Create more jobs 29
Cost jobs 29
No effect 27
In other words, barely more than a quarter of Americans think reducing the deficit will do anything at all to fix the number one concern of voters, i.e. jobs and the economy — yet for months and months, deficit reduction has been far and way the dominant topic in the Beltway conversation. There you have it.
Frankly, I’m surprised it isn’t higher after all the fear mongering. But at this point, I suppose people are just feeling an overwhelming generalized anxiety about everything. It’s more than a little worrisome, however, that the governing and financial elites seem to be intent upon conflating these issues and making people belive that austerity is what’s called for in the moment. We actually have a name for that. It’s called Disaster Capitalism. Works like a charm. For the winners.
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