Anyone else on "overload" or is it just me. I'm trying my best to

[yy4me]

keep informed but am now feeling that I can not absorb the news and information as quickly as it is coming out.

I get the newspaper only 4 days a week now, had to cut down that bill so I get most of my news here. TV just does not cut it for me.(Comcast...'nuff said) I used to be able to follow developments on DU and feel I was fairly well informed. Now it is a case of so much information that unless I am glued to this computer all day, I feel lost.

For as long as I can remember, there was a sort on normal flow of information. Read the paper, check on line, keep up.

Now I find myself just shaking my head as I read and try to filter the news. The state of things is so critical that I guess what is happening is normal for our times. I have to learn how to separate and digest everything.

Am I just getting old or is this overload feeling common to others?

[wryter2000]

1. I'm not sure what I'm suffering is overload

But, I'm feeling totally unable to comprehend the financial mess and Obama's plans to get us out of it. On the one hand, I tend not to trust Geithner and certainly Summers, but I do tend to trust Obama. On the other hand, Krugman seems to have entirely different ideas, and I certainly respect him.

I'm not convinced the problem is just that I'm not an economist and can't evaluate things for myself. I have the feeling that economists don't really know what they're talking about, either. Even good ones, like Krugman.

So, I'm feeling up in the air and really worried that what we try may make things worse, but I can't come up with my own ideas for what needs to be done.

[Blue Meany]

4. I tend to trust that Obama has good intentions,

but I think he is (or at least acts) far more optimistic than is merited. IMHO, we are nearing the limits of available global resources with which to sustain the economy (and human life on this planet). We cannot go back to the economy as we knew it and so we will not.

I wish Obama would spend his political capital preparing the American people to accept the reality that we will have to get by with less than we are used to no matter how we organize and stimulate the economy. And, this being the case, we must reorganize the economy in a much more egalitarian way than we have. There is no rationale for the rich getting richer when the economy is stagnant or shrinking.

[wryter2000]

12. Good points

I wonder if middle and lower class people can do well if we make things more egalitarian, even if the economy as a whole never goes back to where it was.

[Xenotime]

13. Very well said. People need to understand they are all going to have to contribute.

It's the only way for fairness to truly take hold in america.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. One of the few things I walked away from Econ 101 with, lo these many

year ago, was that if economists REALLY knew what they were talking about, WHY AREN'T THEY RICH?

Some of these guys - they may be well off, but they are NOT Warren Buffet rich. And most don't come even close.

Krugman is a case in point. He's very well off - but is that because of his investments, of his working the economic system, or because of a really good paycheck and a couple of best-sellers behind him? He doesn't make his money FROM the system, but by writing and teaching ABOUT the system.

That said, I tend to think Krugman knows more about what he's talking about than most of the others.

[hfojvt]

8. that's a pretty bad lesson

Much of what I know about economics is not about ammassing personal wealth. It is about the national economy, increasing the GDP, reducing unemployment, controlling inflation. They are studying the job market more than they are the stock market.

Of course, another large part of it is "a system of apologetics for the status quo" or basically, arguments in favor of laissez-faire, and as the great Joan Robinson said, one of the primary reasons for studying economics is so that you won't be fooled by economists.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Maybe it was a bad class -

it was back in the early 80s, and what they were talking about was business management (was introduced to 'The Peter Principle' in that class), Wall Street, the advantages of capitalism over controlled economies.

As a theater major I never went beyond Econ 101 so I have no formal learning in economics at all - just that intro class which told me exactly nothing.

[hfojvt]

11. that sounds like a Business 101 class, or a survey class

usually econ 101 is macroeconomics, about the national economy, inflation and unemployment. Sometimes though it might be "general economics" or some such, while Macro is 102 or 201.

[slackmaster]

2. I've found that things seem a lot clearer if I avoid watching TV news programs

That particular medium has a hypnotic quality. It draws viewers in and captivates their attention in ways that radio, print, and online media (exclusive of video content) cannot.

Case in point - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5325805&mesg_id=5325805

I neither know nor care who any of those people are, but I have a pretty good idea that the person who posted the OP watches a lot more TV than I do. What they say about anything has no relevance to me, so I haven't wasted any time or effort trying to figure out which one I dislike most.

I prefer hanging out with my cats.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Old and obsolete, yes

That's why we need the internet plugged directly into the brain, or the internet to be the brain, something along those lines. You're not supposed to keep up. You're only human.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. There is also the deliberately induced sense of urgency -

screaming headlines (about a actress getting a DWI) and ***BREAKING NEWS*** (about a football player sidelined for a game because of a twisted ankle).

Every time you turn on ANY news channel they have a ***BREAKING NEWS*** banner proclaiming a very ordinary news story, but you have to look anyway because it just might actually be news.

:tinfoilhat:

I think it is a deliberate attempt by corporate America to foster unease and discontent - in such times people start looking for ***LEADERS*** who can make them feel safe from the terrorists/criminals/other-undefined-threats, which means their authoritarian/Republican surrogates in Washington. It is the fascist agenda.

[L0oniX]

7. If you think it's bad here ...try Huffington ...talk about overload ...whew

[hfojvt]

9. I think it is tougher because of Obama

with Bush in charge we always knew what to do, and what to think. What to think was "Bush sucks!!!" and what to do was to rail at the M$M for enabling him and to rail at Congress for not standing up to him and to rail at the FReepers for being ignorant sheeple.

Now we do not have that kneejerk option anymore. We used to know what we were against - the Bush administration. We were never sure what we were for (except the negative of stopping the Bush administration).

Some progressives though, are still in attack mode. The Naderites still believe there is not a dime's worth of difference and are determined to expose the President's lack of clothing and lies and prevarications. So it's tough for an honest progressive. You don't want to kneejerk defend the President, right or wrong, but you don't want to get played by the RWNM either.

The Naderites have it easy though, because they can stay in attack mode and tell themselves they are superior to the PINO (progressive in name only) sheeple who blindly support their President or their party. Even if the glass is 75% full, there is always a 25% to rail about and claim it is terrible, awful, no good, very bad policy.

Probably we should all move to Australia.

[sofa king]

14. No, it's way easier for me, now.

For eight years, every day, and for several of those years for good money, I wound my way through the day's headlines trying to determine what lies were being told, what was the purpose of those lies, and what parts of the truth could be guessed from the outline of the lies. I was far better at it than anyone at the time guessed, including myself, because I didn't wish to believe it.

Now, I don't have to do that so much. This President seems to be as honest as a politician can be; his untruths are primarily the byproduct of simplification. He has deftly avoided the issues on which he will probably have to lie. The executive agencies are rather quickly falling into step, and all of them appear to be moving like they don't want to break the law anymore (though some, certainly, will continue to do so).

Some of the biggest lies and concealed fiascoes are now acknowledged and common knowledge: the recession, the housing bubble, the house of cards that are the world's financial institutions, torture, war on false pretenses, criminal corruption in the DoD, and so on. It won't be long before mass murder programs, financial ties between the GOP and Saudi Arabia, and a dozen other cover-ups too shocking to keep concealed will come to light, and I look forward to those days, too.

Republicans are still lying their asses off in Congress, but nobody pays much attention to them anymore--eight years of criminal gangsterism tells most of us all we need to know about what they think. If they're for it, it's bad for you, simple as that. Their bosses on Wall Street are lying their asses off, too, and we all know that. Like poodles thrown into the wild, the kept dogs of the press continue to bare their teeth, but most people simply kick them away in annoyance now.

I think what we're seeing now is a liberated press finally reporting on a thousand issues that were formerly off limits because they inconvenienced the criminal oligarchs who ran our nation straight to the bottom of the latrine. They'll make this President look bad, but that's the price of a free(ish) press, and he seems to have the stuff necessary to rise above it.

[NightWatcher]

15. Kill your television and 'unplug' from the world for a few days

I highly recommend going outside, maybe go whitewater rafting if the possibility presents itself. TV is the opiate of the masses. Just as distracting and evil as shows like Survivor and Lost are the streams of "news" online and on television. Sometimes we find ourselves paralyzed by information overload. That is part of the plan. GEM$NBC is no only trying to tell you what to think, they are trying to make sure that you think TOO much and therefore find yourself plugging in 24-7 just to try to keep up with what is happening "out there". The DOW will go up and down regardless if you know that it is doing so. Car accidents and freak stories will ebb and flow and continue to have no effect on your life.

I too am guilty of information overload, but I'm trying to ween myself from this. I have given up 99% of tv and feel freed by this. It's Spring and the countryside is beautiful in many places. Get out, rest, reset yourself and then come back to the news....it will STILL be there and horrible things will still be going on when you get back.

[Spike89]

16. Totally artificial 24-hours news cycle

Much, if not most of the urgent news is really just incremental news or even more common, potentials. For instance, it is news when congress passes a law, and much less news when a congresscritter simply submits a bill. However, in the overheated news cycle, the bill is examined for potential effects which are then sensationalized--even when the bill is highly unlikely to go anywhere. What you hear is hysteria built on a slight chance that the law would be interpreted a certain way in the even more unlikely event it was passed as proposed.

All the clutter is mostly from desperate news directors trying to feed the insatiable cable and Internet news voids, but there is also benefits for those actually trying to slip things through. When evey sound is an alarm, what can be used to bring peoples's attention to the real issues?