Agreed. however, though I am no expert, I believe that it IS a good time to invest; following the "buy low sell high" rule. Being less critical of the media, I do not see the media as an organized power directly controlling the market as you suggest, but rather as a force necessary to keep the rules of the market in motion. Essentially what I'm saying is, yes, the media is powerful, but its power is not consolidated nor organized, making it unable to make large differences in the market

Actually, it very much is consolidated. A few companies have a majority of the viewers. Think about it, how many major news stations are there? CNN, MSNBC, Fox News are about it, with a couple "local" stations doing the local news (which are actually national stations that just have a bunch of local offices) such as Fox, NBC, and CBS. Most of the small, "independant" local stations are also owned by one of these parent companies.

As for Radio, well, Clearchannel practically owns them all (to be specific, it only controls 900 stations ). With $3.5 billion in revenue, its closet competitor is CBS Radio, which trails by $1 billion in revenue.

Things get even more interesting when you realize that these major companies are owned by yet even larger companies. Take Fox, for example. It is owned by the News Corporation, which also owns Myspace, Photobucket, and IGN, among other things. CNN is owned by Time Warner (which, of course, owns a boatload of other media companies), NBC is actually controlled by GE (so is Viacom), and CBS is controlled by National Amusements (which also has Dreamworks, Paramount, and Midway games)

To sum it up, the major news sites are controlled by a few companies that have a major INTERNATIONAL presence.

However, ownership of a news network does not mean they directly control its content...for example. I highly doubt that Kenny Mulfort is behind an organized effort to maintain control over the general population ...

Yes it does. They may not control it on a day to day basis or anything like that, but if Kenny Mulfort called down and said "run this story", they'll run it (or get fired).

But that really wasn't my point. My point was that the "experts" called in are likely going to be on the same page and saying roughly the same message. I never even implied that the networks would be the ones controlling the message.

hmmm.... =D




anyways, I believe that yes, that most people will be given similar advice by the media... but that is by no means bad; rather it will give the uninformed masses a shred of understanding of the financial markets...

d a m n I sound like an elitist =(

*EDIT* lol nice censoring feature Kerm

*changing subject*
so what do you think about the financial "bailout"? I'm not quite sure what I support =(

I'm fine with it AS LONG AS they remove the parts that say the use of the money is non-reviewable.

The bailout is supposed to be the government more or less investing in the economy, so once everything stabilizes, the government will sell the securities and theoretically should recoup the $700 billion or potentially turn a profit. No idea if it will actually work, but the theory is sound.

So... Looks like rejecting that bail out plan was a pretty bad idea.

Largest single day drop in terms of points ever. 1929 ain't got NOTHING on us! WE'RE NUMBER 1!

well it wasn't actually close to being as bad as 1929... you need to compare the percentage drop because our economy has become so much larger since then....

but I certainly agree that rejecting the rescue plan was a bad idea. Another example of how the uneducated masses have begun controlling Washington... People fail to realize that banks directly impact practically every citizen in our country...

Someone doesn't have a very good sense of humor

From what I can tell the first bail out didn't do much so I doubt this one will do much more.

Well we need to talk about the GLOBAL financial problem along with the national one. England recently made a 500b euro bailout (860 billion dollars) of some banks, iceland nationalized the three major banks there, and other countries have similar problems.

The bailouts won't affect anything quickly. We are talking at least 1-2 years before we've fully recovered.

I actually want to see the economy die, as it would really stick it to my rich-a classmates with their shiny cars and motorcycles, and $25000 computers, and college money. I just want to see them lose everything and die, huddled in the streets, alone, and afraid. I'm below the poverty line anyway, I could (though it is extremely unlikely) be dying (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysautonomia#Prognosis), and for some reason I have this insatiable desire for mass panic. Kinda like the Joker.

though (almost) needless to say...you should go see a psychiatrist...or start thinking rationally

no offense, but desperately seeking attention really isnt smiled upon...

Or... It could have been an attempt at some dry humour; I chuckled. Haha.
25k computers? I wanna see those :P

I think our economy is just resetting itself. We get so caught up in spoiling ourselves that eventually the stock market boils and it over flows resulting in a recession. So, I think our economy is fine.

The Holidays may not be as lavish as we remember this year, however. But that's a good thing, we shouldn't be spoiling our kids with Holiday spending - though as a teen with not a lot of money, I really do want to be spoiled

I'm serious about those rich asshole kids, I want to see them lose everything and die, and with their wealth, the only way that's gonna happen is if the economy dies. It's not like it we can't start over, after all we started from scratch to begin with, and look where we got before Bush took over.

edit- then again that would take hundreds of years...
edit- did I mention one of those pricks has a collection of motorcycles? God a I hate his soul...

???

^Problems

I mean, if you really mean all that, I would make a spectrum of suggestions involving taking things easy and learning to cope, but I don't really think you do (mean all that, that is).

I think you are trying to make a point, and you want to make sure people take you seriously. Basically, you think we won't really care anyway, so you have to exaggerate to get your point across. Everybody does it, sometimes. The thing you have to remember is, some people will take you seriously, and it's best not to upset them since they are often very sensitive people.

Please don't take this as a criticism, merely as an observation about human social interactions.

This is totally irrelevant, but although I dunno about $25k computers, I have a $20k cluster next to my desk in my lab with eight two-processor dual-core Itanium blades.

Good God Kerm; I doubt its your property - and if it is I give you MASS kudo's mate. If you don't mind me asking, do you at least have Stanfords Folding@Home utilize that in the its downtime? o.0

Experts (whoever they are) are saying that America should no longer be considered the financial superpower of the world. However, the same 'experts' say that even so, America still has the strongest economy in the world. Isn't that a little hypocritical?

Also, they have considered getting rid of the dollar! How idiotic is that!?! That would mean that they would flush the entire country of the current currency, and it would take millions to fund the new currency. Then, our new currency won't be valuable for a while, and therefore, will have a huge difference between the euro and the pound, and there already is a big difference.

So, long story short, America needs to stop borrowing heavily from other countries, stop having budget deficits, and improve the house value problem as well as their debt problem before the national debt grows past 10 trillion.

Sorry, I'm 15, so I'm not the smartest person, but this is how I feel.