Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[oblong]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

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

are the others going to apologize for making fun of him?

[oblong]

I love when there's a tragedy and people say "Regardless of politics".... that means the person disagrees with them and is giving permission for sympathy.

[mtutiger]

10 minutes ago, oblong said:

I love when there's a tragedy and people say "Regardless of politics".... that means the person disagrees with them and is giving permission for sympathy.

This is a really good point.

[romad1]

Sebastian Gorka --aka the Grand Dragon of Budapest is selling snake oil off this video today. 

[gehringer_2]

31 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

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.

The risk that I see is mostly with the Fed. They have a playbook they are working from that says you *have* to have an increase in unemployment that reaches some kind of pain level to bring prices under control. And that has been true enough in previous bouts of inflation, but while I generally have little sympathy for people who look at some economic situation and say 'this is different' when it really isn't, this is different - or at least different enough for any previous bout of inflation since the Federal Reserve system has developed the playbook they are currently reading from. The fact is that prior to the pandemic, the economy constantly under-inflated the Fed's targets, and as all the short term dislocations of the pandemic work their way through, that is the status quo the economy is going to tend back to by itself, which is not the situation of 1958 or 1980 or 1990 or 2001 or 2008 experiences that the Fed draws it playbook from. So the risk I see is  that Fed is going to overshoot. The one confounding factor that makes things even more complicated is that the boomer retirement wave does have an effect driving up labor costs. But politically, progressives should be pushing the Fed to allow enough inflation to let working class wage rates go up, because that is the way you want to increase social equity in a market economy - give the market scope to reapportion a bigger share of total corporate income to workers.

[1984Echoes]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The risk that I see is mostly with the Fed. They have a playbook they are working from that says you *have* to have an increase in unemployment that reaches some kind of pain level to bring prices under control. And that has been true enough in previous bouts of inflation, but while I generally have little sympathy for people who look at some economic situation and say 'this is different' when it really isn't, this is different - or at least different enough for any previous bout of inflation since the Federal Reserve system has developed the playbook they are currently reading from. The fact is that prior to the pandemic, the economy constantly under-inflated the Fed's targets, and as all the short term dislocations of the pandemic work their way through, that is the status quo the economy is going to tend back to by itself, which is not the situation of 1958 or 1980 or 1990 or 2001 or 2008 experiences that the Fed draws it playbook from. So the risk I see is  that Fed is going to overshoot. The one confounding factor that makes things even more complicated is that the boomer retirement wave does have an effect driving up labor costs. But politically, progressives should be pushing the Fed to allow enough inflation to let working class wage rates go up, because that is the way you want to increase social equity in a market economy - give the market scope to reapportion a bigger share of total corporate income to workers.

Several Feds have commented on having 25 basis points raises in Feb & March. Others still holding out for 50 basis each of these two meetings. But then nothing until September...

I don't see an overshoot, I see fine tuning.

And the unknowns are where the fine tuning is only a best guess.

The primary unknowns are:

(A) Does China come roaring back because they've stopped their zero-Covid policy. Who knows? They're suffering hospitalizations and deaths right now because zero-Covid basically just delayed the impact of Covid spread and as a population, they are NOT highly vaccinated. Plus, the US and EU are treating China differently than pre-Covid for multiple reasons. They're losing manufacturing and other jobs to SE Asian countries. But if they do take off, that's a huge upside pressure on energy prices, again.

(B) When is Putin going to stop? If he just stopped, today, then (1) a huge pricing easing of foods and fertilizer and related occurs because both Russia & Ukraine are heavy worldwide suppliers (fertilizer and grains in particular) in these areas. Stopping the war will ease access to these supplies in multiple different ways. And (2) the opposite of a China increase in energy demands will be Russia having less difficulties getting oil & related products to China & India. Not certain if the price cap remains or is removed though... another unknown.

This is just my opinion, but: the labor market is less critical to inflation than the Russian war against Ukraine.

[mtutiger]

28 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The risk that I see is mostly with the Fed. They have a playbook they are working from that says you *have* to have an increase in unemployment that reaches some kind of pain level to bring prices under control. And that has been true enough in previous bouts of inflation, but while I generally have little sympathy for people who look at some economic situation and say 'this is different' when it really isn't, this is different - or at least different enough for any previous bout of inflation since the Federal Reserve system has developed the playbook they are currently reading from. 

A lot of it goes back to the discussion of what amount the recent bout of inflation is driven by fast and loose monetary policy and how much is the shocks to the supply chain... to that end, despite all the coverage of the supply chain issues as they were ongoing, the 'playbook' or 'script' we see in how it is all discussed tends to elide those impacts. Impacts that, again, don't really have much of a precedent and, it stands to reasom, whose second order effects may be hard to quantify or to set expectations for.

To that end, the fact that inflation is easing at the same time that kinks in the supply chain and on shipping have unraveles shouldn't be a shock to anyone. 

Edited January 27, 2023 by mtutiger

[CMRivdogs]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

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

When you get corrected by Fox News. 
 

 

Tucker and Hannity would have treated him with kid gloves, or at least come up with a new conspiracy to blame it on M&M consumption 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

recent bout of inflation is driven by fast and loose monetary policy and how much is the shocks to the supply chain.

right, and even then you have to differentiate between continuous flows and one time flows. The government threw a lot of fiscal dollars into the economy when the pandemic hit, but much of it was one time appropriation. Those are things which will inflate the money supply at a point and cause what is basically a step change increment in the general price level, but they are not drivers of continuing inflation the way an overly expansive Federal Reserve would be for instance. The effect of the big fiscal dump was transient in the same way the supply chain issues have been, they are not things the Fed needs long term response to 'wring out'. 

Now, all that said, as I've said before, the thing that may yet save us from any possible overreach by zealous money hawks is that since we started at zero, they have been able to push a lot of rate hike through, which makes them feel they are being effective, while still not hitting rates that I think are likey to crash the economy - as long as they have sense to stop soon.

Edited January 27, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

20 hours ago, oblong said:

I love when there's a tragedy and people say "Regardless of politics".... that means the person disagrees with them and is giving permission for sympathy.

This is very much in the same vein as, when Republicans doing something awful is at the top of the news cycle, their media apologists complain about "both sides", but when it's not in the news cycle, it's 100% all about Democrats.

[mtutiger]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

This is very much in the same vein as, when Republicans doing something awful is at the top of the news cycle, their media apologists complain about "both sides", but when it's not in the news cycle, it's 100% all about Democrats.

It would be interesting to go back and look at Democratic pol reaction toward the Steve Scalise shooting and compare it to the Paul Pelosi attack and Republican pol reaction. 

My guess is that it would night and day.

[chasfh]

41 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

It would be interesting to go back and look at Democratic pol reaction toward the Steve Scalise shooting and compare it to the Paul Pelosi attack and Republican pol reaction. 

My guess is that it would night and day.

What, you don’t remember Democrats snarking that Scalise was shot because he was having a hissy fit spat with his gay lover baseball teammate? 😏

Edited January 28, 2023 by chasfh

[oblong]

 

[smr-nj]

There’s no way Megyn Kelly doesn’t know this. 
Talk about pandering to her listeners…. 

[chasfh]

16 hours ago, smr-nj said:

There’s no way Megyn Kelly doesn’t know this. 
Talk about pandering to her listeners…. 

Yup. Total phony baloney.

[Tigerbomb13]

I know this is just another night for Mr. Fish Sticks, but it’s still shocking to me that this stuff is shown on a prime time news network. 

[Motown Bombers]

 

[mtutiger]

18 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

What editor thought this was a good idea? Jesus

[ewsieg]

21 hours ago, mtutiger said:

What editor thought this was a good idea? Jesus

The first article from the Free Press mentioning the shooters name ended with a blurb that he was born in the same town in New Jersey that the Whitmer kidnap plotting ringleader was born in.   What relevance does that have?  

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, ewsieg said:

The first article from the Free Press mentioning the shooters name ended with a blurb that he was born in the same town in New Jersey that the Whitmer kidnap plotting ringleader was born in.   What relevance does that have?  

journalism at the Freep has been circling the drain for a while now....

really pretty much ever since Gannett took over.

Edited February 15, 2023 by gehringer_2

[pfife]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

journalism at the Freep has been circling the drain for a while now....

really pretty much ever since Gannett took over.

which is terrible as the DetNews has always sucked so we got nothing.   I'll stick with Ground Cover.

[oblong]

Hate sharing their tweet b/c it's townhall but jeez Don..... this is bad.

 

[CMRivdogs]

This showed up on one of my feeds. It would never happen today...but having a civil discussion with Chet Huntley, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Raquel Welch and Janice Joplin. 

That might be my dream dinner...

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by CMRivdogs

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, oblong said:

Hate sharing their tweet b/c it's townhall but jeez Don..... this is bad.

 

WTF? When I saw this I thought it had to Fox and Friends or something. CNN? I guess that's another one circling the drain. Of course we knew that the new management was going to be a disaster, and it's proving it.

[oblong]

I believe that's what they mean when they say "mansplaining"