It is important that the Media exists. Okay. It is important that the Media conveys the news to the Public, keeps them informed, tells the stories, offers open commentary, has its say. Still okay.

Where would I be without the flourishing of the Media, after all?

However. The Media must bear some responsibility for its existence, its freedom of speech. It must exercise balance. For Heaven's sake. For the sake of all our sanity; our world, our . . . .

Please.

If this country plummets into a real, as opposed to a "technical", recession, the national Media will have played its part. Such a lot of yakking about it, so much revelling in it, as though there were absolutely NOTHING ELSE to report, nothing else to write or talk or report about.

Those insipid, hideous "experts", such a proliferation of them, all condemning us to impecuniousness for years, whether we are thither bound or not, should be stuffed back into their leather-bound chairs and stuffed ....

How much damage is done in a million small ways by the wholesale back-balling of our society?

People who still have ordinary jobs, middle incomes, some money, are paying their mortgages all right and are not in immediate danger of losing any of it must almost being feeling guilty, might start to need counselling, might not go out and spend in their local shops and restaurants because the Media has worked so hard to impress upon them that they must be broke too. Or are going to be broke soon.

When there is a problem, or a collection of problems, the Media has to handle it/them in a balanced and sensible way. This constant hammering, this absolute refusal to discuss or give air time to anything else totally unrelated, is devastating. It is crushing.

The tone of the reporting is the problem. The Media's complete conviction that we are ruined, that even in the rescuing, there is ruin, stands to be a seriously dangerous selffulfilling prophecy.

So much of the current world situation has been clearly predicted so often.

Scientists have been calling from the wilderness for decades about the damage that we are doing to this beautiful planet.

Humanitarians, artists of all ilk, philosophers have been warning about the human tragedies impending in every sorry corner of the earth.

Consumers have been voting with their wallets in response to some of this about what kind of homes and vehicles they want to own.

Economists have declared over and over that we must become more of a global, rather than an Americanbased, economy.

Now, there are answers. If there are unheard of sums of money being doled out just to delay the inevitable bankruptcy of already depleted industries, why not, instead, invest those same incredible sums on new and potentially powerful industries?

There are voices still calling out to take action now to (hang on, Stéphane Dion, you may live to see it even if you can't be the one to lead it) and initiate green industries with these huge investments.

Don't give money to the banks (gosh), give it to people. (When I told a person my theory about giving every family $1 million, he said that would devalue money, because if everyone had that much, then it would no longer be worth $1 million - a strange statement, I thought - but what will $1 million be worth after these numbers we can hardly say are dished out? Not to you, or me, but just to those who already blew away similarly big numbers. Inasmuch as you and I still have nothing or very little, will that maintain the value of $1?)

Let the Big 3 auto makers slip away. They've been getting it wrong for decades. Re-tool, re-fit, re-think.

Re-organise the whole business of finance. Invest as well in small finance, small business. There are a lot of very smart people who could achieve great things with middlesized gifts of money.

If it is true that there is no limit to the kind of money that will be shovelled out to save the world's financial life, then shovel it in the right directions.

And let the Media work with more intelligence: it is a powerful force of influence.

Let it yell at the masters to do their jobs right, not simply condemn the common person to penury.