MMMM # 73 - The Mayor's Message: $pend money!

     Here in Montgomery, where the unemployment rate is in double digits, Mayor Todd Strange and the President of the Montgomery County Commission, Elton Dean, have been videotaped for "Public Service Announcements" urging the public to get out there and buy stuff. The messages are running on local TV Stations.
     Yea, it sounded familiar to me too...like G.W. Bush urging Americans to go travel somewhere, anywhere...go buy something, anything!...in the wake of 911:

We've got quite a crowd traveling today, all of whom -- all of whom are here to say as clearly as we can to the American public, get on the airlines, get about the business of America. (Applause.) That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? (Applause.)

   And now, in the midst of The Great Recession, we have city and county elected officials broadcasting the same message, though the drama of the planes and the World Trade Center is missing.
    Of course it would be a good thing for the cycle of buying & hiring to resume! But there's an air of desperation to the new ads. They seem to violate the "Don't let 'em see you sweat" mantra many politicians follow. They might lead people to ask: If the economic situation is really not all that bad, and it's OK to go spend, why do they have to go on TV to beg people to do it?
      The message is also very controlled. It's not on YouTube. It's not even on the Montgomery City or The Montgomery County web sites!

     It is a tough, maybe no-win situation that proves again how interconnected our economy is. People don't buy, stores don't hire. Your move!
     I suspect the 10% sales tax in Montgomery helped cause the drop in retail sales...people will spend, but they'll also spend wisely. And it wasn't the Great Recession that caused the Montgomery Mall and all of that other commercial real estate to empty out along the South and West Boulevards.

I don't know how much of an increase in salary Mayor Strange received when he was elected  (he was a County Commissioner before that), but the half-million or so dollars budgeted for salaries in the mayor's office is a bit higher for 2009 than it was in 2008. So right there are at least a few consumers who will be able to spend freely this Christmas.

[The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of this blog.]