Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[oblong]

And why didn’t the democrats make her retire????

And didn’t he notice what McConnell did with Scalia’s seat? 

[pfife]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

For such an influential media figure, you'd think he would know of the existance of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema.

the more he ventures from data analytics, the less impressive he is.

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, pfife said:

the more he ventures from data analytics, the less impressive he is.

the other thing is that you can't predict with much certainty which way the public mood is going to go if the FC group starts playing obstruction. Maybe it ends up playing well, or maybe the public is tired of it and the backlash ends up being a big boost for the Dems. I think the latter is more likely, in which case the non-FC GOP members are going to see themselves forced pretty quickly into a deal with the Dems to kneecap the FC.

[Motor City Sonics]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

the other thing is that you can't predict with much certainty which way the public mood is going to go if the FC group starts playing obstruction. Maybe it ends up playing well, or maybe the public is tired of it and the backlash ends up being a big boost for the Dems. I think the latter is more likely, in which case the non-FC GOP members are going to see themselves forced pretty quickly into a deal with the Dems to kneecap the FC.

I think it will boost the Dems actually because it makes the Repugnantcans look like they can't govern.   Because they can't, and as much as bungling things pisses people off,  not trying to make anything work is worse.    It will make the Republicans look bad when people can't get services or checks.

Does it feel to you, like to me, that the Debt Ceiling is like the Salary Cap in the NFL.  Yes, it's there, but.............  

 

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Does it feel to you, like to me, that the Debt Ceiling is like the Salary Cap in the NFL.  Yes, it's there, but.............  

 

a fair number of Constitutional interpreters say it's a pointless and unnecessary exercise anyway. Congress already appropriated the money. No where does it say there is any need for the Congress to expressly re-authortize appropriated money to be spent. It's a habit now and no admin wants to force the court challenge because it would make them look like 'spenders'. 

[oblong]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

the other thing is that you can't predict with much certainty which way the public mood is going to go if the FC group starts playing obstruction. Maybe it ends up playing well, or maybe the public is tired of it and the backlash ends up being a big boost for the Dems. I think the latter is more likely, in which case the non-FC GOP members are going to see themselves forced pretty quickly into a deal with the Dems to kneecap the FC.

The public is tired of it. It was a response to perceived extremism by Obmama in 2009 then over time the public is like “Obamacare isn’t so bad”. Trumpism took over the space the FC occupied, brought some others into it, then became the dominant variant (that would not have appeared in my vocabulary precovid).  Now that is waning and the FC is left holding their figurative dicks.   They will go thru their motions but it only helps the Dems long term.  

[mtutiger]

19 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

the other thing is that you can't predict with much certainty which way the public mood is going to go if the FC group starts playing obstruction. Maybe it ends up playing well, or maybe the public is tired of it and the backlash ends up being a big boost for the Dems. I think the latter is more likely, in which case the non-FC GOP members are going to see themselves forced pretty quickly into a deal with the Dems to kneecap the FC.

In terms of culpability, I'm pretty confident that the GOP would be the ones hung with the blame if, God-forbid, they fail to raise it.

But keeping it narrowly to Silver's comment, aside from the fact that it is divorced from political reality (ie. Manchin has stated over and over again he wouldn't do it without GOP votes and no amount of leaning on him would have changed that), it's yet another example of how the media has a double standard for the two parties. Where one party are treated like a bunch of toddlers who don't have agency while it is the responsibility of the other party to fix everything that the toddlers won't address.

I've said it for a while now: we talk so much about "liberal" media bias, yet "the soft bigotry of low expectations" approach to the GOP is prevalent in the media as well and leads to an imbalance in expectations between the two parties. Which is kinda BS...

[mtutiger]

Just to add, the other frustration is how Democrats are often treated as a monolithic entity that just decides which issues to address or not to address. When it reality, they too are also a political party who have a number of different members who dont necessarily see eye to eye on every political issue.

The media seems to acknowledge that with the GOP, but when it comes to Silver's comment on the debt ceiling, he makes it sound like the Dems are a composed of five elders sitting in a smoke filled room deciding "nah, we don't need to deal with that" as opposed to being a party with its own ideological diversity. Which, when you only have 50 seats in the Senate are are relying on Kamala Harris to break ties, that can be a factor toward passing legislation.

[chasfh]

On 1/7/2023 at 1:11 PM, Motor City Sonics said:

I think it will boost the Dems actually because it makes the Repugnantcans look like they can't govern.   Because they can't, and as much as bungling things pisses people off,  not trying to make anything work is worse.    It will make the Republicans look bad when people can't get services or checks.

Does it feel to you, like to me, that the Debt Ceiling is like the Salary Cap in the NFL.  Yes, it's there, but.............  

 

Assuming it all plays out the way we imagine we might, I agree to the degree that the blame for the obstruction can be successfully laid at the feet of the Republicans and not the Senate, the White House, or other Democratic-led institutions. Sure, it would be obvious to us where the problem lies, but remember that the hard right has an entire media ecosystem that influences tens of millions of voters, so the perception of blame wins the day over actual culpability.

As for the fungibility of the debt ceiling, the idea that it’s there but not really there, we’ve gone through this threat before and they’ve always come up with a deal within a reasonable amount of time. So I don’t think we can really project what the effect of a hard fight over it that drags on for weeks, months, or a couple of years would look like—especially if the G-bonds people bought actually stop getting paid on.

[chasfh]

On 1/7/2023 at 2:01 PM, oblong said:

The public is tired of it. It was a response to perceived extremism by Obmama in 2009 then over time the public is like “Obamacare isn’t so bad”. Trumpism took over the space the FC occupied, brought some others into it, then became the dominant variant (that would not have appeared in my vocabulary precovid).  Now that is waning and the FC is left holding their figurative dicks.   They will go thru their motions but it only helps the Dems long term.  

The public is tried of it as of now. Hopefully nothing new happens that re-energizes the right-leaning middle for the spat.

[CMRivdogs]

The man is missing the entire scandal. It's almond m&m's hanging out with caramel ones. That is the real travesty

 

 

[gehringer_2]

Producer Price Index report out today - *down* 0.5%

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-producer-prices-fall-more-than-expected-december-2023-01-18/

I would note that I found this reported nowhere that I could find in the NYT, WAPO or DetNews. Inflation is apparently yesterday's news unless it's $7.00 eggs.

Edited January 19, 2023 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

Interesting piece... it hasn't been so much perceived lack of matching expectations elections wise that has led me to visit less more than just, at least on politics, they have edged into punditry a little too much and aren't particularly good at it.

[oblong]

hoisted on their own petard.

Not sure if that fits at all.... just wanted to say it.

 

[ewsieg]

On 1/7/2023 at 9:54 AM, mtutiger said:

For such an influential media figure, you'd think he would know of the existance of Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema.

Can't speak to Sinema, but Manchin wouldn't have been an issue.  But an even more accurate response would be "why would they?"  It's a political win for them, especially with the GOP talking cuts to entitlements.  Let the GOP take the hit all day and even if the dems compromise and get some entitlement cuts (Biden has a history of wanting to cut them before), they can spin it as they had to do it to avoid jumping off of the cliff and let the GOP take the blame.   

It's a completely dumb fight that the GOP is bringing on themselves.  Democrats should keep giving out the rope.

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Can't speak to Sinema, but Manchin wouldn't have been an issue.  But an even more accurate response would be "why would they?"  It's a political win for them, especially with the GOP talking cuts to entitlements.  Let the GOP take the hit all day and even if the dems compromise and get some entitlement cuts (Biden has a history of wanting to cut them before), they can spin it as they had to do it to avoid jumping off of the cliff and let the GOP take the blame.   

It's a completely dumb fight that the GOP is bringing on themselves.  Democrats should keep giving out the rope.

Yeah, the Catherine Rampell piece I just shared in the 118th Congress thread covers the dilemma facing the GOP well. It's a very pointless fight.

[oblong]

DirecTV dropped Newsmax because they insisted that DirecTV pay them. Now some jackhole in Congress wants to hold hearings because they were 'censored'.

Republicans want to tell businesses how to operate.  I thought they were against that.

[chasfh]

On 1/24/2023 at 8:19 AM, mtutiger said:

Interesting piece... it hasn't been so much perceived lack of matching expectations elections wise that has led me to visit less more than just, at least on politics, they have edged into punditry a little too much and aren't particularly good at it.

He should just go back to Prospectus. They’re about the same speed now.

[pfife]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, pfife said:

 

 

It remains to be seen if the Federal Reserve will yet muck it up by refusing to take yes as the answer.

[mtutiger]

53 minutes ago, pfife said:

 

 

That headline screams frustration... and that they really want one to happen 

[oblong]

well they told us it was so...

[ewsieg]

I think it's silly to say Biden's plan is working, about as silly as to say his plan isn't working.  

There are many legitimate concerns out there right now.  I see no issue with media pointing this out.  I don't think companies are laying off folks just for the fun of it, although I would be open to the idea that reason does come into play.   This board loves to point out inflation is down, but it's still very high.   We have a lot of legitimate reasons to look forward and expect a recession.  The fact that Biden has dodged it so far can only be looked at as a positive IMO, despite what his FED is doing to fix inflation at the cost of shrinking wages and attempting to soften the job market.

My reason for some short term optimism does come down Biden's infrastructure bill and his other infrastructure bill everyone refers to as the Inflation Reduction Act.  Those are pumping money to every corner of the country and will keep blue collar folks working which should negate any hard crashes.  Time will tell.

 

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, ewsieg said:

We have a lot of legitimate reasons to look forward and expect a recession.  The fact that Biden has dodged it so far can only be looked at as a positive IMO, despite what his FED is doing to fix inflation at the cost of shrinking wages and attempting to soften the job market.

This is the part where I think we (and by "we" I mean economists and the media that takes cues from them) need to acknowledge that, just as the pandemic was unprecedented, the economic recovery after it will also be unprecedented.

I dont really buy that there is anything malicious in the recovery or that the media really wants us to have one, that was more sarcasm, it's more that there's a level of confidence (and arrogance) expressed in these predictions/expectations that seems misguided.

Edited January 27, 2023 by mtutiger

[mtutiger]

And this is why you don't get high off your own supply