It's all the medias fault really.
They are hysterical at best. I mean look at the typical sensationalist guff that's been keeping Joe Blog in check for the last decade or so:

WAR ON TERROR!

BSE AND/OR BIRD FLU GLOBAL PANDEMIC

And of course the erm, 'credit crunch'. Like a slogan for a breakfast cereal. A breakfast cereal that will annihilate your entire life and then the life of your family. Just like my children were all blown to smithereens by suicide ragheads and my parents ravaged and reduced to semi-conscious shells of geriatricy (not a word) by CJD.

The 'credit crunch' is so popular. Everyone's talking about it. Somebody lost a job eh? Must've been the credit crunch. Nothing to do with being a blatant twat or alternatively your employer acting completely irresponsibly.

Where was I? Ah blaming the media. Why is it that the average man will only purchase a newspaper if it has either a celebrity upto no good on the front page, a line graph that starts nice and lovely around the 2003 mark and then drops dramatcally for about umm now, or a scene of death and carnage (9/11 for example). Nothing like a few blood stains and a chargrilled car for sales.

Just a glance at the headlines of the red-tops turns me into a seething ball of consumer-rage. Here we have:

80 foreign murderers welcomed to Britain

I mean I don't like our PM as much as the next layman but I can't see him standing at the chunnel, welcoming a foreign secure prison transport lorry reverse up, swing open it's rear doors and unleash 80 deadly killers upon our shores. On second thoughts I'd like to see this.

The Sun: ULRIKAS SHOCK WIN. Does this depress me? I don't even know. Why does this take precedent over anything. Perhaps I'd prefer "CREDIT CRUNCH CRUNCHES UP YOU. NOWWW!"

The broadsheets aren't much better: Lights go out across Britain as recession hits home Thank you The Guardian. Looks like we can't even afford to turn the lights on. We'll be fumbling along en mass in the dark, scraping our fingernails in the gutters trying to find another tabloid headline to hold up into the moonlight, probably to be informed of another celebrity weight loss success or as 'most read' in the Times today - if we squint enough we can see that Iran are "scrambling" for a wee bit of Uranium to stick in a b-bomb. The 'credit crunch' can't be affecting those in the middle east too badly if they can afford such expensive fuel. With a bit of luck they'll stick it in a bomber, send her on over and euthanise us all.
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 10:51, 2 replies)

It's not...
...actually the media's fault per se.

It's the fucking morons like us that are so used to being spoon fed what to think that we can't look beyond the headlines.

If we stop lapping it up they will stop printing it.

Or, failing that, (because I would be a total hypocrite if I didn't admit to reading these stories) if people at least (re?)developed a tiny bit of independant thought and critical faculty they would look past that and try to understand for themselves what was happening.

And, to be fair, what is happening is very bad news. It's not the end of the world that the media would have you believe, but it's really not a great place to be.

but, just think for your fucking selves people. I've made horrible mistakes about how I've lived my life, but I've learnt.

You don't need to believe The Sun, you don't need to have some 'expert' on the BBC tell you what is going on.

Fuck, sorry. Rant over.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 14:22, closed)

Am I the only one who read that and thought
In Soviet Russia, credit crunch crunches up YOU!
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Sat 24 Jan 2009, 16:35, closed)