Media Sins: Whose 'Good Economy'?

Writing in the New York Times today, Paul Krugman makes the point that what underlies the savage partisanship of the current political climate is the growing polarization of the economy. Not since pre-FDR days has it been more true that 'the rich get rich and the poor get poorer'.
Which makes all the more baffling the media's mindless promotion of George Bush's 'good' or even 'booming' economy. The fact of the matter is that the Bush propaganda machine has persuaded our richest publishers, editors and news anchors that 'the economy' in the aggregate is the same thing as the economy that exists inside their own individual households. Aren't your stocks rising? Haven't my tax policies allowed you to send the kids to even more expensive private schools? Can you believe that the house you bought for three million is now worth three times that?
What this fails to take into account, of course, are simple facts like the flatlining of real wages for the working class, rising gasoline prices, and the rapid disappearance of little things like company pensions and health insurance and union wages. This is a classic example of the 'Couric factor'--my view of the world MUST BE the real world.
And if this sounds like a back door call to class warfare, so be it. That's Krugman's point. Unless we're willing to reverse economic polarization, the tone of politics isn't going to get any better.

diderot