Ben Stein Must Be Stopped
Marek Fuchs, TheStreet.com
1/28/08
So many points to pontificate about, so little time.
First, let me begin with a first. I have never warned readers away from any one columnist or journalist, but after reading his column this weekend in The New York Times , I feel obligated to tell readers to never read Ben Stein again.In indicting traders and lackeys in the press for the subprime selloff, Stein offers not one shred of evidence. Moreover, his implication that traders would purposefully tank the subprime market because they are short stock belies the reality that almost every Wall Street firm is getting creamed because they were not short. And traders are getting laid off left and right. Again: because they were not short.He speaks about a wise brother-in-law who apparently once explained the legal system to him. He mentions a trader he once spoke to about a movement in the price of IBM. And that's it.
He goes on to raise an eyebrow about the spread between the size of the write-offs and size of the market losses, without mentioning that part of the market losses have to do with the fact that no one knows where these securities should be priced (unknown is the greatest market fear) and, uh, there has been a concern or six about the economy besides subprime taking down prices.
I have seen a lot of bad business journalism in my day, but nothing as irresponsible and so wholly unsupported by facts. Actually, by even a single fact. This is his last line:
"And one thing's for sure: With the traders running things, it won't be a good time for amateurs until the traders cry "Switch!" and the market starts to rise."
Read it (if you promise me it'll be the last of his work you read) and tell me if this effort is any better than the braying on conspiracy Web sites. It was a shameful effort.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ben Stein Must Be Stopped
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3 comments:
Now, now. Ben is simply showing off that massive mind of his. First he takes fundie money for a propaganda film and now he has started channeling the National Enquirer's bastard offspring with the John Birch Society from a Federalist bent.
Ben is an important source of information. We should read Ben -- because Ben is a bellwether for all that is false and fraudulent. Ben says it means - don't buy it for a second. He's paid to lie. He does a fine job. I'd expect no less from one of Nixon's former speechwriters.
Let Ben be Ben. Let the rest of us realize that he is chicken little drawing a fee worthy of P.T. Barnum. But P.T. Barnum amused people with shows and curios - Ben simply pirates "newspeak" right out of Orwell's 1984.
MC - that ban of yours - the facts are against it. The Big Lie is alive and well with Ben Stein.
Plenty of people lie. Especially wingnuts. Ben is one of those, as well as an unprincipled money-grubber.
I'm not talking about mere lies. I'm talking about institutionalized propaganda. The Fox Network. The New York Times hid (they call it "sitting on the story" - like it will hatch someday) the wiretapping outrage for 18 months. The dumbest Schultzberger pandered to Judith Miller - a woman who has earned the 7th ring of Dante's hell for her mendacity - and the lives she has helped to end.
The Washington Post isn't Katherine Graham's paper any more and Walter Leland Cronkites are in short supply (not counting Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez). NPR has metamorphasized from National Proletariat Radio (as the Right used to refer to the scrupulously middle-of-the-road news operation) to "Nice Polite Republicans" and they spread the big lie just as far and wide as all of the others.
I've been boycotting them and refusing to donate (a substantial sum every year for nearly 37 years) because Mara Liasson reported that the Jack Abramahoff scandal was bi-partisan. It was not and never has been. I've written the ombudsman at least a dozen times - with each new conviction- and they still won't publish a retraction or state how the Democrats benefitted from Abramahoff. They have mastered the art of the sly innuendo, the half qualified quote and the anonymous "reliable source." NPR has lost any relevance - as have CNN & Bloomberg the most word-packed of television channels.
Today, we are as likely to read television as to watch it. Text creeps and crawls around the pictures on CNN and its siblings -- C-Span, ESPN, MSNBC, CNBC and it all detracts from a simple message.
C-Span 1, 2 and especially 3 (hearings are carried on C-Span 3) are the only channels I can stand to watch with the text (usually, the time left in a vote, the current vote totals and the bill - or the name and title of a speaker).
Where is the investigation into that Anthrax event that conveniently disrupted Congress and took a few lives. I'd bet big bucks that the perpetrator bought a few thousand shares of Cipro's manufacturer, Bayer, just before the incident. Why was the Anthrax a weaponized Ames strain? Why are we still looking for the culprits and Osama bin Laden almost seven years later?
We have Bill O'Liley and the skank of the night (oops, right) Ann Coulter, Mona Charen along with that fine American Robert Novak out there spinning so damn much BS so hard that this nation reflects only brown when the sun rises.
I'm talking about "talking points" and how Rush and his ilk degrade this nation on a daily basis - at the behest of Fox News chief Roger Ailes who takes his marching orders from Rupert and Karl.
We went to war based upon the Big Lie: WMDs that did not exist and were known not to exist. THAT'S PROPAGANDA. BEN STEIN HAS JOINED COULTER AND NOVACK AS A PURVEYOR OF PROPAGANDA.
PAY ATTENTION TO HIM AND LEARN WHAT THE NEW BOSS WANTS US TO BELIEVE. Tanking banks didn't play well with HW's campaign - so McCain, Huckleberry, Mittens and Ron (those toys are mine!) Paul, M.D. all stand to benefit if we can be deluded - and that little tax deal is designed to pay out near the conventions and the election - can they buy our votes?
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