Tanta, as just another example of a consistent trend in media spin, one has to ask why is the general incapable of presenting just the facts rather than BS spin. It seems that is all they do is just spin bad news into good news. Why? Are they told to? This is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Little by little our own little Pravda's are sprouting up all around us. Again, the objectivity of the major outlets of media reporting is a major issue that needs examining, now more than ever.
" hedge fund whose identity we know is having subprime-related problems similar to Bear Stearns, one veteran investment banking source told us. We are not releasing the name of the fund until we can confirm more information about the fund and its problems. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, several sources tell us that the CDO (collateralized debt obligations) market is in serious trouble. CDOs that invested in subprime assets are being hammered. "Most of these are held by insurance companies and foreign accounts," said one banker, requesting anonymity..."
What is amazing to me is that the nightly news is dominated predominately by bad news to get ratings (war, murder etc.) But then at the other end cnbc, and most of the MSM, spins bad news into good news. I guess the true bad economic news wouldn't be good for ratings???
More importantly dryfly, how are average consumers going to continue to believe in the wealth effect, ignore their credit card balances and spend, spend, spend if people like CR keep bringing reality into it all. It is also going to totally ruin the White House's spring/summer "Ain't the Economy Doing Dandy" media campaign and you know how hard it is put all that bunting! Some people just don't have any consideration.
I have wondered how DPI relates to various income brackets. I was told that the increase in the December DPI was due to the large bonuses paid to various fund managers and corporate executives. In other words a few thousand fund managers and executives were able to skew the DPI because of their huge bonuses. My guess is that most of the income growth has been at the upper 10% of income earners and the other 90% have been barley keeping up with inflation.
"the other 90% have been barley keeping up with inflation."
Nope, former lurker. About 50% of the public is most definitely falling behind inflation.
Btw, Office Depot warned. They project 2nd qtr established store sales down 4-5%, significantly worse than the 3% decline in the 1st qtr. They blame it on a weak economy.
Stuart,
It seems every financial news channel or website is like that. I wonder too, if the 'reporters' are just lazy or are they told to 'write something positive.' It's practically an epidemic.
My favorite - if the Dow is down 100 points, but it was down 105 points earlier, the anchor will enthusiastically announce that the DJ is off the lows of the day!
Denzel,
In the bear market years of 2000-2002, Yahoo! moved the Finance icon to a less obvious place on their homepage. When the bull market returned, the icon returned to the top left next to Email.
I guess with personal finance, good news is the news that sells.
This is just one of many "official" government reports that is purposely issued to mislead the public. It is all media spin and highly suspect data collection methods. Just about everything is held together by smoke and mirrors. Do not think for a minute that the Asians actually believe any "official" report. When these creditors decide to end the party, it will not be pretty. Only physical gold and silver will provide refuge, as they have for over the past thousands of years.
Most of the time the media isn't explicitly told what to write. Groupthink and self-censorship do most of the work. It doesn't help that most "journalists" aren't subject-matter experts in the topic they are covering - this makes them much easier to baffle.
From memory earlier today, most of the increase in spending was due to food and energy as well, whilst the rest barely moved.
Fjr - re TV reporting, you can report as much bad news as you like as long as it's from places middle America has never heard of becaue it will never have a direct effect (unless you're unfortunate enough to have been born poor enough to have to have considered the army a reasonable career choice). Reports of downsizing and having to sell the hummer though, not for nice middle class voters consumption.
In that same AP article, I just want to reiterate, there is this sentence, near the end:
Economists, however, caution that the picture of savings isn't as bad as it looks. The savings rate doesn't provide a complete picture of household finances because it doesn't capture gains from such things as real estate or financial investments.
In other words, "Economists" believe that a negative "savings" rate is not really a negative savings rate because it does not include the wealth effect produced by...the envelope please...real estate and financial investments.
Now, seeing that on the pages of the same newspapers there is the news that financial investment instruments backed by real estate loans are turning up beheaded on the banks of the Euphrates, you should excuse the expression, you do really wonder what is going on.
When the cheerleaders get internally inconsistent, the end is near.
And, for the love of God, please remember that the Clintons are out of the market. They didn't just ask Chelsea what she thought of stocks, let me tell you.
I have to imagine (or at least fool myself) that most journalists, while they may be hacks, are not involved in some kind of conspiracy to keep us all stupid (uninformed) and happy (maybe that takes medication).
Dont you think it is a basic misunderstanding of economics?
Why not just report real DPI and real PCE?
Also, the one government statistician I know (he works for a branch of USDA) finds the misuse of their agriculture statistics as irritating as we find the misreporting of personal income statistics. I dont think the government statisticians are involved in the conspiracy either or maybe I am just being naive.
What is weird is that "affordability" improved in San Diego and Los Angeles because median income both went up 5k from Q4 '06 to Q1 '07. San Diego shows a greater improvement as well because of a lower median price. Also general affordability was helped by a lower interest rate.
Maybe not intentional, but certainly lazy. The word that comes to mind for many of these journalists, other than hack, is stenographer.
Has journalism always been this bad? Or am I just noticing it more?
But that is one reason I and others who read CR come here and other sources (Roubini, Fleckenstein) is to try and get to the facts beneath the headline.
$5,000 improvement in median income in 1 quarter seems awfully steep, I just found that weird.
Fewer low end jobs in, say, residential construction? [political comment follows] Of course, before it became dominated by non-English speakers, residential construction was not a low-end job.
Have you ever tried to teach statistics or scientific method? Even at college level (in the US, at least), the typical student reaction goes something like this: "I hate this! It's boring, too hard to understand, and I'll never use it."
Even if the MSM journalists could/would report accurately, most readers wouldn't understand the reports anyway. Not only that, but their audience wants to hear from cheerleaders, not Cassandras; don't expect many plaudits if you're gloomy, even if it turns out you were right. Been there, done that...
I agree that there's not necessarily a MSM conspiracy to keep the sheeple comforted and keep them spending. It's more a matter of financial ignorance.
Most journalists' knowledge about the subjects they cover is a mile wide and an inch deep. They know just enough to expose their real ignorance. Heck, most of them are so dumb, they won't even write a paragraph in their stories about the margin for error regarding the stats they're quoting.
Having said all that, there is definitely a vested interest on the part of media outlets to keep the party going. Watch CNBC for a few hours, especially overnight. On EVERY commercial break, there is an advertisement for Ditech or some other lender pitching 125% LTVs or cash-out refis. If subprime and Alt-A go away, so does all that advertising revenue. Food for thought.
This is a sort of economic summary in which the reporter bundled together several related stories to make a nice column to run down the left side of page 2 of the business section of the Point Forlorn Daily Messenger. He regurgitated a couple of press releases, called somebody reliable for a quote, typed up material that somebody else phoned in, and bundled it all together. He hardly had time to think, and indeed reporters are not paid to think anymore -- just file.
If there's a conspiracy in the woodpile, it's that people with an interest in controlling economic news always make "reliable sources" available for harried reporters to call for a quick quote. And those sources comments are always, well, reliable.
If our reporter was to try to delve a little deeper and get some non-mainstream (that is, real analytical) opinions, he'd have to hunt down twice as many sources because his editors, of course, would insist on "balance" with the establishment commentators. And he only has two hours.
Funny, of course, how his editors rarely insist on getting negative opinion that balances the cheerleaders' point of view.
Going to start growing some corn in the backyard at the rate that income is starting to fall. Oh well, we lived on the top for a decade- hope everyone enjoyed their salad days.
I for one am planning on making some very nice money as the 21st Century Real Estate Bubble Commander(TM) Ben Bernanke begins a contraction from infinity and beyond to real multiples in more categories than Wall Street could ever imagine. Funny thing is that I believe that most in Washington are now willing to throw Wall Street under the bus to save homeowners.
Gonna be real tricky when we deport a bunch of those new homeowners, though.
Nothing like hard times to rack up some serious xenophobia. Blah, I am going to clean some grout off of my new marble walls in my magnifique commode chamber, and contemplate the madness that has brought us here....
Someday this war's gonna end...but first we get $5 a gallon gas and ten dollar burgers!!!!
dryfly you must be talking about an iPhone, not gold and silver.
Well you might need an army to guard your iPhone... at least until Monday when by then they'll be old hat... but the old adage applies "When you havta have gold, it'll be unsafe to hold."
The walls aren't high enough & the moat not deep enough around my castle for me to safely own gold. And putting it in the hands of somebody else (broker or banker) is the same as not owning it all all - they do. In a situation like that might as well own 'fiat' and be perfectly 'safe' (whose gonna wanna steal that, right?)...
Tanta, as just another example of a consistent trend in media spin, one has to ask why is the general incapable of presenting just the facts rather than BS spin. It seems that is all they do is just spin bad news into good news. Why? Are they told to? This is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Little by little our own little Pravda's are sprouting up all around us. Again, the objectivity of the major outlets of media reporting is a major issue that needs examining, now more than ever.
CR you're not helping. How are we ever going to get to Dow 36,000 with all his negativity?
It's because they are all Cheerleaders....
May I request 'Mickey' by Toni Basil for Saturday Rock Blogging....
" hedge fund whose identity we know is having subprime-related problems similar to Bear Stearns, one veteran investment banking source told us. We are not releasing the name of the fund until we can confirm more information about the fund and its problems. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, several sources tell us that the CDO (collateralized debt obligations) market is in serious trouble. CDOs that invested in subprime assets are being hammered. "Most of these are held by insurance companies and foreign accounts," said one banker, requesting anonymity..."
http://data.nationalmortgagenews.com/columns/hearing/
Juicy.
even with a average income private saving is still falling that's very bad for the future, when income will fall be prepare for the nightmare
Stuart,
What is amazing to me is that the nightly news is dominated predominately by bad news to get ratings (war, murder etc.) But then at the other end cnbc, and most of the MSM, spins bad news into good news. I guess the true bad economic news wouldn't be good for ratings???
More importantly dryfly, how are average consumers going to continue to believe in the wealth effect, ignore their credit card balances and spend, spend, spend if people like CR keep bringing reality into it all. It is also going to totally ruin the White House's spring/summer "Ain't the Economy Doing Dandy" media campaign and you know how hard it is put all that bunting! Some people just don't have any consideration.
I have wondered how DPI relates to various income brackets. I was told that the increase in the December DPI was due to the large bonuses paid to various fund managers and corporate executives. In other words a few thousand fund managers and executives were able to skew the DPI because of their huge bonuses. My guess is that most of the income growth has been at the upper 10% of income earners and the other 90% have been barley keeping up with inflation.
"the other 90% have been barley keeping up with inflation."
Nope, former lurker. About 50% of the public is most definitely falling behind inflation.
Btw, Office Depot warned. They project 2nd qtr established store sales down 4-5%, significantly worse than the 3% decline in the 1st qtr. They blame it on a weak economy.
I guess the true bad economic news wouldn't be good for ratings???
If bad economic news were delivered through television, then people would start to believe they can't afford the stuff advertised in the commercials.
Stuart,
It seems every financial news channel or website is like that. I wonder too, if the 'reporters' are just lazy or are they told to 'write something positive.' It's practically an epidemic.
My favorite - if the Dow is down 100 points, but it was down 105 points earlier, the anchor will enthusiastically announce that the DJ is off the lows of the day!
Denzel,
In the bear market years of 2000-2002, Yahoo! moved the Finance icon to a less obvious place on their homepage. When the bull market returned, the icon returned to the top left next to Email.
I guess with personal finance, good news is the news that sells.
All, I'm going to have more this report - so I guess my second construction spending post will be this weekend.
Best to all.
This is just one of many "official" government reports that is purposely issued to mislead the public. It is all media spin and highly suspect data collection methods. Just about everything is held together by smoke and mirrors. Do not think for a minute that the Asians actually believe any "official" report. When these creditors decide to end the party, it will not be pretty. Only physical gold and silver will provide refuge, as they have for over the past thousands of years.
Fireworks
Most of the time the media isn't explicitly told what to write. Groupthink and self-censorship do most of the work. It doesn't help that most "journalists" aren't subject-matter experts in the topic they are covering - this makes them much easier to baffle.
From memory earlier today, most of the increase in spending was due to food and energy as well, whilst the rest barely moved.
Fjr - re TV reporting, you can report as much bad news as you like as long as it's from places middle America has never heard of becaue it will never have a direct effect (unless you're unfortunate enough to have been born poor enough to have to have considered the army a reasonable career choice). Reports of downsizing and having to sell the hummer though, not for nice middle class voters consumption.
In that same AP article, I just want to reiterate, there is this sentence, near the end:
Economists, however, caution that the picture of savings isn't as bad as it looks. The savings rate doesn't provide a complete picture of household finances because it doesn't capture gains from such things as real estate or financial investments.
In other words, "Economists" believe that a negative "savings" rate is not really a negative savings rate because it does not include the wealth effect produced by...the envelope please...real estate and financial investments.
Now, seeing that on the pages of the same newspapers there is the news that financial investment instruments backed by real estate loans are turning up beheaded on the banks of the Euphrates, you should excuse the expression, you do really wonder what is going on.
When the cheerleaders get internally inconsistent, the end is near.
And, for the love of God, please remember that the Clintons are out of the market. They didn't just ask Chelsea what she thought of stocks, let me tell you.
Dear CR,
I have to imagine (or at least fool myself) that most journalists, while they may be hacks, are not involved in some kind of conspiracy to keep us all stupid (uninformed) and happy (maybe that takes medication).
Dont you think it is a basic misunderstanding of economics?
Why not just report real DPI and real PCE?
Also, the one government statistician I know (he works for a branch of USDA) finds the misuse of their agriculture statistics as irritating as we find the misreporting of personal income statistics. I dont think the government statisticians are involved in the conspiracy either or maybe I am just being naive.
Best regards
Kett82, I don't think there is any conspiracy - I just think the reporting was misleading. I doubt it was intentional.
Best Wishes.
Has anyone cranked the year-over-year numbers yet?
No Downgrade Friday?
jb
NAHB Housing affordability index is out.
What is weird is that "affordability" improved in San Diego and Los Angeles because median income both went up 5k from Q4 '06 to Q1 '07. San Diego shows a greater improvement as well because of a lower median price. Also general affordability was helped by a lower interest rate.
http://www.nahb.org/fileUpload_details.aspx?contentID=34325
$5,000 improvement in median income in 1 quarter seems awfully steep, I just found that weird.
Here is the press release:
National Association of Home Builders
Maybe not intentional, but certainly lazy. The word that comes to mind for many of these journalists, other than hack, is stenographer.
Has journalism always been this bad? Or am I just noticing it more?
But that is one reason I and others who read CR come here and other sources (Roubini, Fleckenstein) is to try and get to the facts beneath the headline.
$5,000 improvement in median income in 1 quarter seems awfully steep, I just found that weird.
Fewer low end jobs in, say, residential construction? [political comment follows] Of course, before it became dominated by non-English speakers, residential construction was not a low-end job.
Have you ever tried to teach statistics or scientific method? Even at college level (in the US, at least), the typical student reaction goes something like this: "I hate this! It's boring, too hard to understand, and I'll never use it."
Even if the MSM journalists could/would report accurately, most readers wouldn't understand the reports anyway. Not only that, but their audience wants to hear from cheerleaders, not Cassandras; don't expect many plaudits if you're gloomy, even if it turns out you were right. Been there, done that...
I agree that there's not necessarily a MSM conspiracy to keep the sheeple comforted and keep them spending. It's more a matter of financial ignorance.
Most journalists' knowledge about the subjects they cover is a mile wide and an inch deep. They know just enough to expose their real ignorance. Heck, most of them are so dumb, they won't even write a paragraph in their stories about the margin for error regarding the stats they're quoting.
Having said all that, there is definitely a vested interest on the part of media outlets to keep the party going. Watch CNBC for a few hours, especially overnight. On EVERY commercial break, there is an advertisement for Ditech or some other lender pitching 125% LTVs or cash-out refis. If subprime and Alt-A go away, so does all that advertising revenue. Food for thought.
Thanks CRisk for a great forum.
-- Judge Smales
"You'll get nothing and like it!"
Only physical gold and silver will provide refuge, as they have for over the past thousands of years.
LOL. Only if you have your own bank vault and a personal army to defend it.
Hide this report from the Delphi guys....
we don't want this spoiling the July 4th weak auto sales week...
I just saw the Ditech commercial
A 30 year fixed , 1st 10 interest only...
200k for 999/month
This is a sort of economic summary in which the reporter bundled together several related stories to make a nice column to run down the left side of page 2 of the business section of the Point Forlorn Daily Messenger. He regurgitated a couple of press releases, called somebody reliable for a quote, typed up material that somebody else phoned in, and bundled it all together. He hardly had time to think, and indeed reporters are not paid to think anymore -- just file.
If there's a conspiracy in the woodpile, it's that people with an interest in controlling economic news always make "reliable sources" available for harried reporters to call for a quick quote. And those sources comments are always, well, reliable.
If our reporter was to try to delve a little deeper and get some non-mainstream (that is, real analytical) opinions, he'd have to hunt down twice as many sources because his editors, of course, would insist on "balance" with the establishment commentators. And he only has two hours.
Funny, of course, how his editors rarely insist on getting negative opinion that balances the cheerleaders' point of view.
Going to start growing some corn in the backyard at the rate that income is starting to fall. Oh well, we lived on the top for a decade- hope everyone enjoyed their salad days.
I for one am planning on making some very nice money as the 21st Century Real Estate Bubble Commander(TM) Ben Bernanke begins a contraction from infinity and beyond to real multiples in more categories than Wall Street could ever imagine. Funny thing is that I believe that most in Washington are now willing to throw Wall Street under the bus to save homeowners.
Gonna be real tricky when we deport a bunch of those new homeowners, though.
Nothing like hard times to rack up some serious xenophobia. Blah, I am going to clean some grout off of my new marble walls in my magnifique commode chamber, and contemplate the madness that has brought us here....
Someday this war's gonna end...but first we get $5 a gallon gas and ten dollar burgers!!!!
LOL. Only if you have your own bank vault and a personal army to defend it.
dryfly you must be talking about an iPhone, not gold and silver.
dryfly you must be talking about an iPhone, not gold and silver.
Well you might need an army to guard your iPhone... at least until Monday when by then they'll be old hat... but the old adage applies "When you havta have gold, it'll be unsafe to hold."
The walls aren't high enough & the moat not deep enough around my castle for me to safely own gold. And putting it in the hands of somebody else (broker or banker) is the same as not owning it all all - they do. In a situation like that might as well own 'fiat' and be perfectly 'safe' (whose gonna wanna steal that, right?)...
I concur dryfly
the avg american has underspent on defense....
let's sell them moats