Today's Big Lie: Financial Journalism Blurbs

[Josh_Kablack]

I thought this was just the WSJ's evil-vizier telling Emporor Norquist what he wants to hear, but here's the LA times repeating today's big lie, so it's worth pointing out:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiw- ... Stories%29

Investors on Monday worried that the shifting political landscape in Europe could undermine the region's long battle to keep its shared currency intact and restore the faith of global investors

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average fell as much as 68 points in early trading, but recouped its losses and even gained 10 points by the afternoon. The Dow finished the day down 29.74 points, or 0.2 percent, at 13,008.53.

Someone wants me to believe that the Dow dropping as much as one-half of one percent was a due to a :gasp: Socialist winning the French election!!! And the markets are in a tizzy over it.

Well except that, none of that is true in a meaningful way:

• The Dow recovered half of that and closed down less than one-quarter of one percent
• The other two indexes closed up
• This change is less than the usual average daily change in the DJIA Link
• Hollande was the favorite in polls before the election, so the market would have expected his victory in advance of the vote.
• The markets to date have not rewarded austerity measures or candidates winning. Link So there wasn't any basis on which to expect for them to punish the victory of anti-austerity candidates in the first place.

A non-propaganda headline would have read something along the lines of "Stocks close mixed on expected victories in European elections"

[Username17]

The big lie is out in force when it comes to European economies. Consider Ireland. They did what they were "supposed" to do (write giant checks to their bankers and impose huge austerity measures on the populace to pay for it all), so they were "supposed" to be rewarded with a rapid recovery and rosy economic prospects. Problem: this didn't actually happen. The Irish economy sucked then, it sucks now, and their prospects for the future suck pretty much for the foreseeable future.

But because they were "supposed" to get some kind of return to prosperity for their austerity virtues, people in the media keep announcing that they have had good news even though they haven't! Check out June, 2010, and of course December, 2011. So much recovery!

On the flip side, countries that don't do what they are supposed to do are labeled as having failed, even if they haven't. Let's look at Argentina for a moment. Holy shit! Destroying their economy?

Well, not really:


But their GDP is supposed to be in freefall, because they were bad! Heterodox economic policies! Nationalizing industries! Defaulting on debts! Bad bad bad! So obviously, something horrible must have happened to them. And if reporters can't find any actual evidence of that, they'll just have to make some up.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Good luck getting the overclass to acknowledge, let alone talk about Argentina (re-, but that was a long assed re-) overtaking Brazil in GDP so convincingly. We can't even get these douchebars to acknowledge that despite all of the wanking they do to the 'Chilean Miracle' they were so far in the hole with Pinochet that they actually lagged behind South America.

It does make me wonder exactly what the overclass wants. I mean it's one thing to advocate for venal and cruel policies to enrich your pocketbook, but they're willing to do it even when it makes them poorer in the short and long run. Or maybe it's just an application of Grey's Law. Hmm.

[RobbyPants]

It does make me wonder exactly what the overclass wants. I mean it's one thing to advocate for venal and cruel policies to enrich your pocketbook, but they're willing to do it even when it makes them poorer in the short and long run. Or maybe it's just an application of Grey's Law. Hmm.

Zealous adherence to financial dogma? Lack of understanding of what's happening?

[DSMatticus]

It does make me wonder exactly what the overclass wants. I mean it's one thing to advocate for venal and cruel policies to enrich your pocketbook, but they're willing to do it even when it makes them poorer in the short and long run. Or maybe it's just an application of Grey's Law. Hmm.

There is no cohesive upper class conspiracy to manipulate the world in their rational self-interest. There is a shared ideology which perpetuates in a relatively isolated, self-reinforcing population coupled with a fear of change, which is pretty how much how all bad ideologies persist well after they should have been taken out back and shot. Human beings kind of suck.

[ckafrica]

Argentina (re-, but that was a long assed re-) overtaking Brazil in GDP so convincingly.

Just to clarify. That chart did not indicate that Argentina's GDP has grown larger than Brazil's. It showed that it grew faster than Brazil's since 2000. Its comparative growth rather than absolute growth.

[Username17]

Argentina (re-, but that was a long assed re-) overtaking Brazil in GDP so convincingly.

Just to clarify. That chart did not indicate that Argentina's GDP has grown larger than Brazil's. It showed that it grew faster than Brazil's since 2000. Its comparative growth rather than absolute growth.

Yeah, remember that there are still almost 195 million Brazilians and only a bit over 40 million Argentines. Brazil is also running a 2 trillion dollar economy, while Argentina is running a 370 billion dollar economy.

The point with Argentina is that they actually have been putting up the kinds of big number growth that we're told represent an up-and-coming tiger economy. But newspapers still treat Argentina as if their GDP was in free fall, instead of having recovered from their crap out at incredible speed:


What you get instead is articles in Forbes speculating about how maybe there is a giant conspiracy to hide Argentina's inflation, and their GDP is really much lower than it is. But let's be honest here: the giant boom in the last few years as reported by Google is in nominal dollars. Quoting Shadowstats as if they mattered isn't going to change anything.

-Username17