Why oh why oh why

This morning on the news, and why I watch the news has to be the most baffling thing.  I ask why I watch it as I seem to disagree with most statements made by the news items, let me explain.  Recently the Christmas figures for retail were announced and on one particular figure it was stated with doom and gloom that the like for like figures between this year and last year.  It was said that like for like figures was down 1.6% and that was basically a disaster and I thought why.  Firstly we have had years and years of positive growth and continued growth is unsustainable and has to go down at some point and secondly and to me more importantly the headlines read that 1.6% of stuff was not bought by people who cant afford it and 1.6% of stuff was not bought by people who don’t need it.  Why is this fixation that every figure in business has to be up up up or it is a disaster.  A company can have decades of growth but one year of even the tiniest bit of stagnation is met with shame and abomination.  Can we not accept that things sometimes do come back in line.

Furthermore, recently the stock market tumbled due to the US talking about putting interest rates up which might dent the next multi million profits being made.  The news headlines were made and it was doom and gloom and finally one presenter finally asked the right question, how does this affect the 99.9% of real people and the lady being interviewed said, “It doesn’t at all except for pensions which of course are accrued over 30 or 40 years and not days and weeks”.  So basically half the news items were jumping all over the drop in shares and the fifty billion wiped off companies that had been put there only weeks earlier and no doubt will start to be put back again. 

I do wonder sometimes if the news people are looking for the smash and grab headlines to get people watching and stop them turning over to Piers Morgan – oh goodness even I found that funny.