It's The Economy, Stupid

I'm haunted by this video from BBC News, and the fact that I haven't seen this report in U.S. news media. The Morning Journal sums it up:

"Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are jumping all over President Bush's handling of the economy but not offering any concrete solutions of their own; don't hold your breath waiting. Republican John McCain has given an general thumbs-up to the Bush Administration's actions to deal with the crisis."

Hat tip to Kristin Forbriger

Great report from the BBC. I'm struck by the voices of the BBC broadcasters when reporting on these types of stories. Their voices have compassion, sensitivity and nuance.
Thanks for pulling this clip B.L.

I, too, was haunted by this video a week before your post BL. So surreal in the BBC vernacular, one could switch this with a Sudan narrative. All the Fed rate cuts and Bear Stearns bailouts will fail on one simple fact: individual solvency is going down the drain. This shanty town is near my sister's house in Ontario, CA. Soon they'll have the 740+ FICO score section of tent city. That will be the other side of the tracks.

I call shenanigans on this video. The BBC says that these people are living in the streets because they couldn't afford their mortgages, but people who could afford a house in the first place (even if they couldn't really afford it) should be able to at least pay rent somewhere. Certainly a beaten up apartment is better than living in a tent. This isn't to suggest that the people in this video haven't fallen on hard times, it just seems stupid to blame their situation on the sub-prime crisis, when the real issue has more to do with them not being able to find work full time.

Yep, this subject didn’t get any attention here – a stark contrast to the coverage that the 80s “tent cities” garnered (see link at end of comment). It was good to see that old coverage, because it reminded me that the mainstream media did – at one time – actually report the news (or some semblance of it). Like you, I tune in to news from other countries if I need real info. I wonder when our traditional media – which continues to woefully suffer - will understand that if they want advertisers, then they must first have an audience? And if they want an audience, perhaps they should try reporting real news…?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923086,00.html PS - Leave it to Time Magazine to use the words "success" and "spoil" in the same header as "tent city"...HA.