Glass Half-Full
Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 1:51 am
I get a lot of critical e-mail here and I often get whacked for being too optimistic -- "too rose-collared-glassish," as one viewer put it.
You know what? You're right.
I do have a very different take on things, much more upbeat than you're hearing in the media.
Take a look at the economic numbers. Why do we focus on the downside all the time? The media sees a 5.6 percent unemployment rate and calls it bad. I see a 94.4 percent employment rate and I see it pretty good.
The media says only 21,000 jobs added to the economy. I see six months straight of job gains in this economy and more than 360,000 jobs at that.
It happens all the time.
I hear a lot about a few corporate crooks. But I hear nothing about the thousands of publicly listed companies that aren't crooks.
I hear a good deal about the 1.5 percent of bad priests, but never, not once, anything remotely positive said about the 98.5 percent who are good priests.
I hear that every mutual fund is rigged, yet discover more than nine out of 10 are not.
I know we like to report on the one plane in ten million that crashes, or the car accident that stops traffic. There's no compelling story reporting "yet another plane landed safely today" or "99.9 percent of people made it home today."
If it bleeds it leads. If it corrupts, it counts. If it distorts, it dominates.
This much I do know: The world I see isn't nearly as bad as the reports I see.
Things are not perfect, but they are far from pathetic.
If that makes me a Pollyanna, then color me rosy. But get a lot of paint. After all, this is a pretty big head.
-Neil Cavuto
Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on Your World with Cavuto.
You know what? You're right.
I do have a very different take on things, much more upbeat than you're hearing in the media.
Take a look at the economic numbers. Why do we focus on the downside all the time? The media sees a 5.6 percent unemployment rate and calls it bad. I see a 94.4 percent employment rate and I see it pretty good.
The media says only 21,000 jobs added to the economy. I see six months straight of job gains in this economy and more than 360,000 jobs at that.
It happens all the time.
I hear a lot about a few corporate crooks. But I hear nothing about the thousands of publicly listed companies that aren't crooks.
I hear a good deal about the 1.5 percent of bad priests, but never, not once, anything remotely positive said about the 98.5 percent who are good priests.
I hear that every mutual fund is rigged, yet discover more than nine out of 10 are not.
I know we like to report on the one plane in ten million that crashes, or the car accident that stops traffic. There's no compelling story reporting "yet another plane landed safely today" or "99.9 percent of people made it home today."
If it bleeds it leads. If it corrupts, it counts. If it distorts, it dominates.
This much I do know: The world I see isn't nearly as bad as the reports I see.
Things are not perfect, but they are far from pathetic.
If that makes me a Pollyanna, then color me rosy. But get a lot of paint. After all, this is a pretty big head.
-Neil Cavuto
Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on Your World with Cavuto.
