Edited on Tue Aug-23-05 08:04 AM by Mark E. Smith
(A noted Bush apologist goes to extraordinary lengths here to explain away an inconvenient reality. So who is at fault for all these troubling complaints about the high price of fuel these days? Guess.)
Nominal vs. Real News
Americans relish self-pity, so only a spoilsport will note that the portion of consumer spending on energy has declined since 1980.
And regarding news media, begin here: They should not subtract from the public's understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and talk about "record" oil and gasoline prices. For example, a recent headline in the Financial Times proclaimed: "New York investors take flight after price of oil hits record high." But the story's fifth paragraph read: "West Texas Intermediate for September delivery settled $1.83 higher at $64.90 a barrel - a new nominal record..." The real meaning of the word "nominal" is: "The headline you just read is rubbish." As was the next day's page-one headline - "Oil price hits $66 for a fourth record of this week" - which was nullified by the story's first words: "Oil prices yesterday broke their fourth consecutive nominal record for the week..."
(Huh. So when I pay $2.89 for a gallon of gas here in sunny California, that price is only nominally ridiculously high, as opposed to truly ridiculously high? Hey, at least it's not the worst it has ever been, in a relative sense that is! Damned old news media, confusing me again. But thanks to our patronizing pal George Will, I've been set straight .... So here's a paragraph that points out that it isn't just the news media's fault, it is my fault as well!)
But in America, every pleasure quickly becomes an entitlement, so Americans regard as a civil-rights outrage the fact that today's relatively low price of a gallon of gasoline - relative to prices in other years - is 67.5 cents higher than last year's very low price. Americans relish the pleasure of self-pity, so only a spoilsport will mention that since 1980 the share of consumer spending that goes for energy has declined from 9 percent to 6 percent.
(See? It is my fault! I'm a spoiled entitled American ingrate who has, because of the news media, become dangerously ill-informed about the extraordinary boon that has been visited upon my unworthy self by a gracious energy industry and its overseas business partners. Gas prices are low, the energy industry isn't raking in record profits - they're "nominal" record profits you know, war is peace, bad is good, and The Great Leader is really a cowboy who never ever lies.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9022907/site/newsweek/
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