Opening Post

I have decided to follow "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days," a conservative blog, and, on the other side of the political spectrum, "Wonkette," a liberal blog.

An Increasingly Troubled Employment Market, posted on January 4, addresses the issue of growing unemployment in the US. In recent months, the unemployment has been increasing which has thus made people worried about the possibility of a recession and the continued increase of the unemployment rate. The blog goes on to say how, working parallel to how people have become scared over the increase in unemployment, stocks have taken a big drop recently. Despite this, it does point out that unemployment is still only 5% which isn't very made in the greater scheme of things. I find myself agreeing with the final point made in this post. Although there are definitely negative effects whenever the rate of unemployment goes up, it is still small in the bigger picture of the whole nation. The problem is that people scare easily and react strongly to small, and sometimes insignificant, problems, often the media plays a big part in over dramatizing these things. But the negative reaction of the public over small problems like a slight increase in unemployment can easily lead to bigger problems like causing large drops in the stock market, which can cause more economic problems and possibly cause what would be a serious recession. This is a bit far from and past the point made by the post in "A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days." But after reading into this issue, I find myself thinking more negatively of the media and its effects because of its ability to influence the masses, making mountains out of mole hills; fake, preceived mountains that can lead to the creation of real mountains.