tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post7215016259117412556..comments2024-03-28T04:29:22.717+00:00Comments on mainly macro: The media, the market and truthMainly Macrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-79854670359612057342014-05-18T10:21:15.992+00:002014-05-18T10:21:15.992+00:00Your focus, is understandably, on what is publishe...Your focus, is understandably, on what is published, and by whom. However, and maybe more important is what is not published! The media operates its own form of censorship.Roger Sealeynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-9937671500740106482014-05-17T15:15:09.491+00:002014-05-17T15:15:09.491+00:00I agree, and in a way that was partly what I was t...I agree, and in a way that was partly what I was trying to suggest in my post. In the UK, TV and radio are subject to impartiality rules, while as you note the 'fairness doctrine' was abolished under Reagan. For UK newspapers on the left, bias tends to be of the mild kind. Selection of facts and deliberate distortion are much more commonplace on the right. As I suggested at the end, it is far from clear that this strong form of bias is what readers seek. Mainly Macrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-39867465959241737462014-05-17T14:45:07.321+00:002014-05-17T14:45:07.321+00:00Consider two examples of media in the US (cable ne...Consider two examples of media in the US (cable news networks rather than newspapers), Fox News and MSNBC. Both may be said to fit Mankiw's description of media whose news coverage has been determined in some fashion by "consumers". That is, both aim their news coverage at specific audiences -- Fox News, at very conservative viewers, most of whom happen to be elderly, and MSNBC, at liberal/progressive viewers who are younger. From a strictly business perspective, Fox News made the better choice, because its share of elderly, retired viewers have more time during the day to watch its programs hours on end. But how well do these two networks "report" the news and present viewpoints that may challenge their viewers? It's a fair comment that Fox News never presents such viewpoints, while MSNBC does. My sense of the latter's editorial and news policy is that, if substantial scientific evidence emerged to contradict claims of human-caused climate change, MSNBC would report such news. (Fox News would suddenly discover that it did indeed value science after all, and also report such news.) Setting aside the issue of which network is better as a "democratic institution", consider whether these two examples demonstrate Mankiw's assertion that they "speak well of the marketplace" and are positive evidence of the success of its "invisible hand" guiding us to the best outcome. I think they prove exactly the opposite -- the failure of the marketplace. The "hand" at work here is entirely visible. Fox News and MSNBC could not exist in their current form if they were required to present news objectively (a loaded word, I know, but there are criteria to determine objectivity), and if they were also required to present different analyses and opinions with at least something like an even hand. In the US, the government, with respect to parceling out spectrum of airways (TV and radio), public property by the way, at one time had rules that promoted such behavior. Alas, no longer. What Mankiw's demonstrates is an abysmal failure of the marketplace, not its success, and he makes, perhaps inadvertently, a pretty good argument for government intervention, especially in the use of public property such as airways. <br /> Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00497338897358474117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-3312717186219886422014-05-17T13:38:12.554+00:002014-05-17T13:38:12.554+00:00Here is a study which suggests less segregation: h...Here is a study which suggests less segregation: http://www.techpolicy.com/Blog/April-2014/How-Much-Ideological-Segregation-Is-There-in-Onlin.aspx<br />(HT Romesh Vaitilingam)Mainly Macrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-11849160499109181012014-05-17T13:01:13.576+00:002014-05-17T13:01:13.576+00:00I think the neo-liberal orthodoxy has to think a b...I think the neo-liberal orthodoxy has to think a bit more critically about immigration. In other disciplines, anthropology, political science, people know why immigration is a concern. It is true that it is largely, but not only, about jobs. It is also true that under New Labour little was done for unskilled labour in this country to prepare for (by the orthodoxy) a very unexpected flood of immigrants following the expansion of the EU eastwards in 2004. Really the orthodoxy should have prepared for this. First they said that only a few thousand would come; when a million came, they said they would return. When they did not return they said it was good for us. None of this is helpful, whatever the media says. <br /><br />Another big tragedy is because of continuing high inflows from the A8, we cannot let desperate Syrian refugees.<br /><br />The big fear is when the economy picks up and we get jobs growth, these jobs will go to highly elastic supply from the A8, and maybe Bulgaria and Romania as well. Are we prepared? Or is only UKIP and the right wing press going to run the media show and drive the immigration agenda? What we do not want to hear is more talk about employment growth, without a dent in native employment. Are we going to have another lost generation of permanently native unemployed?<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-37098631572443345082014-05-17T08:07:57.826+00:002014-05-17T08:07:57.826+00:00I offer this as a thought: economics and journalis...I offer this as a thought: economics and journalism came into being at roughly the same time in history, late 17th early 18th centuries (I steal Antoin Murphy's start figure of Sir William Petty for macroeconomics, and I throw in L'Estrange and his non-statist rivals for journalism in England).<br /><br />Adam Smith, incidentally, came to believe that only a few economists understand economics (see 'Adam Smith and tradition: The Wealth of Nations before Malthus' by Richard Teichgraeber in Economy, Polity, and Society: British Intellectual History 1750-1950). <br /><br />And in Alec Cairncross's autobiography he reports Keynes saying the same thing to him as Smith above.<br /><br />Funny old games. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-62959682174494512292014-05-17T06:53:41.931+00:002014-05-17T06:53:41.931+00:00It's James Hansen, Anonymous.
~~
That Climat...It's James Hansen, Anonymous.<br /><br />~~<br /><br />That Climate is changing rapidly due to man-made releases of greenhouse gases is fact. <br /><br />But what I find more interesting is what to do about it. Here Krugman, Thoma, like many, centrist-liberals like the confirm their biases (Pro-renewables, anti or indifferent or vacillating towards nuclear and gas). They don't get called on it, really, by their economist brethren. (Not that their is anything "wrong" with advocating renewables: but it's a tougher argument that they make it out to be.)<br /><br />http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/05/krugman_nuclear.html<br />http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2013/01/the-japan-story-continues-to-evolve.html<br />http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/opinion/krugman-salvation-gets-cheap.html<br /><br />Contrast their opinions on energy policy to those of Hansen: <br />http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf<br />http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2014/20140313_SenateTestimony.pdf<br /><br />Or the reality of energy production and use:<br />http://www.cesarnet.ca/visualization/sankey-diagrams-canadas-energy-systems<br />https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Apr/NR-14-04-01.html<br /><br />Note the dominance of fossil fuels. (And in Canada's case, the current dominance of Uranium energy (mostly exported), over that of oil and gas. If the world were using gen4 nuclear technology, the potential energy in that same amount of U would increase by at least two orders of magnitude, totally dwarfing the oil and gas energy.)<br /><br />Also note that renewables provide only a sliver of current energy. They would have to increase by several orders of magnitude to replace, or even dent, fossil-fuel energy. There is no guarantee that the economics of renewable energy systems observed today (for example, getting moderately cheaper every year) would, in fact, scale with an increase in their use commensurate to making an actual difference in mitigating climate change. crfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10726414637021391906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-33131779558345965542014-05-17T04:37:55.169+00:002014-05-17T04:37:55.169+00:00Right wing guy should look at Charles Hansen's...Right wing guy should look at Charles Hansen's early and much maligned predictions about climate change. He was wrong, in that he underestimated it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-88488940720584751892014-05-17T01:16:32.590+00:002014-05-17T01:16:32.590+00:00As a right wing guy, I find your blog a bit like t...As a right wing guy, I find your blog a bit like the Krugman view that really liberals are smarter and their views are just right, period. I think of when I commented to a left wing economist that is US, based on tax data, the income shares of different groups were unchanged, so with increased need based government aid one should conclude that under any meaningful measure income inequality had decreased. He just said other sources differed. You climates change example is very telling. Go back to 2000, and look at climate change predictions. Have they proved accurate. Have the models proved accurate? No one really denies climate change, just how much, is it caused by man, and can we do anything about it? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09021302974761643755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-64890092445298739012014-05-16T21:12:26.037+00:002014-05-16T21:12:26.037+00:00For example, could anyone please point out, from t...For example, could anyone please point out, from the notoriously pro-God Guttenberg Bible to the notoriously pro peace and bipartisanship Washington Post, what they have in mind when referring to the "traditional view" of allowable bias? And could somebody please demonstrate an understanding of the fact that in the US, "the press" consisted of high school drop outs until 1945, when the professional objective media came into being, with a back story claiming it had always been there?Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-15594002911369009402014-05-16T21:06:23.282+00:002014-05-16T21:06:23.282+00:00Economics expands to demonstrate yet another area ...Economics expands to demonstrate yet another area of life, the press, that it is willing to debate in market terms despite a glaring lack of basic knowledge. Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-19609843370132235942014-05-16T19:06:16.940+00:002014-05-16T19:06:16.940+00:00Ok, so the media and, as Mankiw points out, the ma...Ok, so the media and, as Mankiw points out, the markets in general, are mostly demand-driven. Thank you Greg for confirming that.Alexander Sebastian Schulzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15135338616598357444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-60033735340646922232014-05-16T16:56:43.692+00:002014-05-16T16:56:43.692+00:00"First, do we know that people are happy not ..."First, do we know that people are happy not to be told important facts that they might find challenging? If they had a choice between a newspaper that presented all the facts from their own ideological perspective, and another identical paper which only gave them the facts they wanted to hear, would they really choose the latter? Perhaps people do not get that choice."<br /><br />There's quite a lot of research into how people consume news on the Internet (none of which I can lay my hands on now - Cass Sunstein?) that suggests that people seek out sources of information that confirm their pre-existing prejudices and avoid those that challenge them. Indeed one of the most striking effects of the modern communication era may be that it makes it easier to avoid challenges to your opinions and drives a deepening polarization of the political landscape.Martin McGrathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05716326796091279059noreply@blogger.com