I'll confess to a bit of envy for the "real" journalists, but I'm happy to see how you are content to keep your anonymity and defend your integrity. Best wishes and I hope you both continue to enjoy your busy retirement / respite. There's always lots to learn from your posts and the comments. Thanks for sharing.

Isn't it amazing how reporters always want to question other people's motives yet rarely acknowledge their own?

Keep up the great work, you two!

Dear CR and Tanta,

I have long admired your blog and your dedicated work. I'm sure there are many other people who emphatically agree with me. However, as the old Hungarian saying goes, "weeds grow everywhere." Unfortunately, your very excellence draws unwelcome attention.

Hang in there,

Mike

from an avid lurker, with thanks ...

“The power of accurate observation is commonly
called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
George Bernard Shaw

CR, Tanta, thank you for all the great analysis. As an engineer with little economic background (but a lot of curiosity), I come to this site first for insight regarding housing and the economy.

Given the recent unravelling with the subprime market, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that the two of you are getting more attention. After all, you have been predicting the current downward spiral for quite some time. Makes you wonder why it was so difficult for mainstream media to see this coming.

I find the two of you (and a few of the regular commenters) to possess a wonderful combination of human qualities - intelligence, humor, civility, patience, and energy. To me, visiting this blog is a therapeutic chance to be with (mostly) like minded individuals. I look forward to many more enjoyable visits to calculatedrisk... Thanks again.

CR & Tanta-

Thanks for your hard work / hobby / whatever-you-call-it.

I am among those who intuitively understood what goes up must come down. It's easy enough to say, "something bad's gonna happen." You've done far better. You have been providing insight to HOW it happens BEFORE it happens.

My fear is the FDIC will realize they've run out of old school, common sense executives to stick in failed banks. They'll find Tanta, let her name a price, and she'll be put in charge of [name your favorite FI]... and no longer blogging.

-CBam

I find myself coming to this blog more and more frequently. Not only to read the stories without the spin, but to read the nuggets in the 'comments section' too. You just can't get this timely information anywhere else. I bring it to the weekly investment committee meetings at my firm.

The mentality of 'don't worry, everything will be okay' in the MSM is mind boggling. Not to pile on journalists, however I will anyway, but it seems the headline writers are determined to slant the news to be positive rather than truthful.

They'll note that the "economy continues to generate jobs", but they will intentionally(?) fail to note that the trend is negative and the quality of the jobs created is low. Not just employment headlines, but there are many other instances of economic data being twisted. For example, like XYZ Company that beat EPS estimates, but the story fails to note that guidance had already been lowered and revenue was down. Questions aren't asked, and discrepancies don't matter. The state of journalism during this decade has deteriorated considerably.

I read CR because investigative journalism is dead. There are still "reporters" though. They go straight to the appointed spokespople in power organizations for quotes, and dutifully report them.

Can't stand watching newscasts anymore. I can learn much more and much faster, by reading. If something needs to be conveyed visually, link it with a media file, thanks.

CR, I'm glad you nailed those guys!

Go Tanta!

tanta rocks!

a regular lurker, occasional poster

Heere Ye Heere.
Understand that a good percentage of those employed are employed for a reason - they plod along to maintain a monetum, nothing more nothing less. In some circles this/they would be called dead wood.
A long time ago, while I was managing my own marketing/communications firm I too was enticed into giving ideas, sharing thoughts, and spending time with clients to suduce business. Wrong. I was the one being suduced.
Example: I was invited to a "Preferred Retreat" where 12-14 key suppiers were hosted for a two day retreat to brainstorm on new ideas and approaches. I bought it. I played for the first day and on the second, I woke up to the fact I was being played to give ideas/concepts for free, for the blessed grace of being associated with this blue chip consumer products company. I left the "retreat".
Dead wood craves nothing more than moisture to sustain their carrers because they having nothing from within to give that is new or inciteful. Reality - I would say upwards of 25% of most corps are nothing but dead wood.
Pay to play, or go home.
I love your blog. The adverts do not offend me. Get more! Make some hay. But at all costs refuse to raise the moisture content or commonsense of all that dead wood out there.

What an extraordinary Declaration of Independence! Thomas Jefferson is smiling in heaven. Okay, smiling in the part of heaven reserved for slave owners who sired several children by their black mistress, but smiling nonetheless.

The sickening thing is that it exposes the "mainstream media" as a bunch of low-talent [rhymes with bores] whose self-imposed job description is "Toady-on Dude!"

Wow.

Just to show how incredibly easy it is to slide into racist postures, my comment above should say, "slave mistress".

I apologize for having written it the way I did.

Boats against the tide.

CR and Tanta,

What an interesting post. Thanks for taking us behind the curtain of the blog/MSM nexus. I have two observations to add to the ideas above:

1. CR and Tanta have decades of experience; most MSM reporters don't. It's understandable that many (most? almost all?) MSM reporters can't hang with CR and Tanta on many issues discussed here. But that's true for most of us. The value of this blog starts with the expertise and good judgment of the moderators.
2. But if this were just a site where CR and Tanta posted without allowing user comments, then I’d venture very few of us would show up. The power of a blog like this, in my view, derives from the hosts posting views which can be instantly challenged. Statements, data, logic can be refuted or corroborated. Many minds are brought to bear upon a problem; many voices debate the truth of a matter.

In my view, a number of conclusions follow from #1 and #2:

• The MSM can do #1 (the voice of expertise, authority) but in its present form it doesn’t do #2 very well. For the most part, the MSM message is broadcast one-way. The speakers come from the elites. Blogs are messy, democratic, peer-to-peer things. Sometimes the result is dross (Yahoo message boards) and sometimes you get a “wisdom of the crowds” effect (this site).
• Furthermore, the MSM message is shaped to maximize profit. If the message happens to be true, great, but if the truth doesn’t sell or it drives away advertisers . . . . A blog like this isn’t compromised by the profit motive. CR and Tanta can write whatever their hearts desire and disseminate it to a wide audience at very little expense (overlooking the opportunity cost of their time). Boss can’t fire them. Investors can’t threaten them.
• Lastly, the MSM is in a bind. Do they join, ignore or destroy blogs. The few attempts I’ve seen where a MSM player (e.g., Time) takes up blogging doesn’t work. I think it goes back to the profit issue; the MSM blogger isn’t truly free, and the audience knows it. The MSM can’t ignore blogs, because a large audience is moving away from paying for MSM publications and broadcasts. So, I believe, that leaves us with a battle between the corporate oligarchs and the citizen bloggers. But that’s a discussion for another day.

To sum up, I come to this blog daily because of CR, Tanta and a number of other intelligent contributors. I still refer to the MSM, but increasingly, this site and others like it draw my attention. For CR or Tanta to play the quotable expert game with the MSM would be a step back.

Shorter still: we don’t need your stinkin’ quotes.

Since you mention you are are always willing to reject suggestions for postings, how about a backgrounder on acronyms?

TIA stumps me...

thanks for all you do

MtHood, wonderful wrapup. Thanks.

CR,

There may even be bloggers so delusional innovative that they still have hopes that the Big Media, print or online, will quote directly from their blog postings and provide links (text or hypertext, as the format allows) so that Big Media’s readers can be directed to the blog for further information.

Well this has been done a few times. Wasn't there some article that talked about ben jones' bubble blog? Sometimes there are references to blogs in newspapers. Not en masse, that's for sure. But why do they still do it sometimes?

But you do accept tips now!

mp said --

I applaud your policy, but still think Tanta missed her true calling as an ass-ripping journalist. Maybe even Pulitzer stuff. Hey, gal, you could do it.

I just visited this blog for the first time this morning, courtesy of a link from Arthur Silber. This post was the first thing I read. I'm impressed with the wit and intelligence on display in this post.

mp, I submit that you insult Tanta greatly by making reference to the Pulitzer Prize. Any self-respecting writer knows the Pulitzer is about sales, not quality. Any self-respecting writer would not consider the Pulitzer an honor. I'm not even a paid writer, just a hack blogger, but I've read enough and written enough and analyzed enough writing to know that the Pulitzer is like the literary Nobel -- it's about sales, promotion, commerce. It has nothing to do the quality of one's writing, analysis or insights. NOTHING.

Tanta and CR, I value high-caliber writing, wit and intellect and I am going to be visiting this blog daily from here forward. Your observations about lazy journalists, the value of blogging and internet communal discussion, and the integrity of those who engage in those things are valuable, wise and accurate. I am looking forward to learning more about the matters that each of you takes the time to think about, analyze, and write about.

Thanks for doing this.

Tanta,

Lovely post. Apologies for the fan-boy comment, but I must ask - your writing style betrays what seems to be a classical education in the liberal arts, perhaps knowledge of Latin, and dare I say it, Greek?

The skilled use of the old (very old) rhetorical and stylistics tricks are in your post: tricola, asyndeta, anaphora, paraprodoskian, variatio, apostrophe, etc etc. My favorite is your wonderful dry wit and irony--what the Romans called urbanitas.

Just lovely.