The Whacky World of Financial Journalism

I must admit, I'm not immune to it. I seek it. I enjoy it. I learn from it. But not in the ways that you might expect. I learn from it in the same way that I learn from observing laymen break down the reasons why we went to war with the Iraqis and Afghanis: with fascination, a window into how people think, and a primer on how to survive in a world full of shallowness. Yes, I'm talking about the Whacky World of Financial Journalism- the articles, shows, and headlines pertaining to the world of finance. Why we readers still pretend that we can decipher the causes of a layered and multi-faceted topic in one damn headline or talking point is beyond me. In addition, many explanations on sites devoted primarily toward financial news are just plain flat wrong. Getting the public to understand the true nature of financial news would be one of the best things that could happen to America. But that sounds a lot like education, and our brains have been conditioned to seek entertainment over ejumucation.

One of my favorites (that never seems to change with the passage of time) is the images of happy traders rejoicing on up-days and inflated images of dejected traders on down-days. Unless you're a trader who only goes long, people with half a brain know that the biggest down days could put a huge smile on any trader's face. And even the long-only trader could rejoice over the fact that he sold the day before the down day, with the prospect of picking up cheap shares on the bounce up. Would these people more properly be characterized as opportunists and bottom feeders? No, because Mr. Wall Street media only likes to project short sellers as evil opportunists. A more accurate headline would show happy traders guffawing at near suicidal traders on days of high volatility.

I also seem to constantly read about the latest "genius" money manager, who usually became a genius overnight after being ridiculed the other 364 days prior. I would much rather hear about the story of how this individual got into the position of managing X amount of money so that others can either try to replicate that path or see how the wheels of priveledge, nepotism, and chance work. I've found that reading lottery winner press releases is a much more pleasing activity. Everyone knows the recipient was simply lucky in life, and then you proceed to read with fascination over how the person is going to change their life. It's basically the same story rewritten a thousand times.

Oh wait, that's starting to sound a lot like financial news. I haven't been to the TheOnion.com in a very long time, so maybe they already started doing this - they should simply copying real headlines for jokes. Or better yet, do the financial sites a favor by making up whacky headlines which they can then copy/paste. One could be "Gold rises as unease about Bernanke's Beard Length Mounts." Much more illuminating would be a simple graph showing Bernanke's money printing superposed with the price of gold for the past decade. But I forget, the public is easily fooled by them numbers.

It's one thing for scam artists to do their thing, but it's amazing how Wall Street's money funneling business is reflected in the media. Or maybe not so amazing if you take a quick look at the interests and people involved. The greatest threat to Wall Street interests is perhaps giving people the choice of going elsewhere with their money, and they're doing a good job of preventing that through mass marketing. If we as Americans can un-hijack our brains and concerns from what our entertainment media tells us (which now encompasses finance, world news, local news, politics, and to some degree Hollywood), we might make real progress instead of spending all our efforts in fixing things through the political realm.

So...how do we start a quiet revolution to become a more educated society GROUND-UP? Maybe this one will be long drawn out, causing us to evolve in ways that more mature societies have had to do through the ages. Hopefully we can still adhere to our American ideals. And another thing- something tells me Twitter and Facebook will not start this evo/revolution.