This blog does not attract alot of comments. Among the obvious conclusions to be derived from this fact is that:1). What appears on its pages does not merit being thus dignified;
and/or
2). That, in the interests of personal tranquility, eye contact with the writer is to be avoided at all costs.
We would like to propose the third hypothesis that web publications (of the variety that purport to be providing analysis of current events) that engender widespread public participation are those that:
1). Posit the existence of an evil force in day-to-day life;
2). Identify clearly what the source of that evil is;
and then
3). Allow the indignant unwashed to verbally tar and feather the culprits through the comments section.
This worked for IBEX Salad in the case of our recent entries concerning that Beelzebub of the bicycle, Lance Armstrong. But, appealling as might have been the attention received, we have reverted to our former policy of seeing actors as misinformed, self-serving, inadequate for the task to which they find themselves asssigned, or just plain bloody stupid.
On a more practical level, readers who might be wondering how to effectively sort through the immense amounts of bumph that appears in the blog-o-sphere, the following analogy might help.
If, whilst walking through a farmer's field on fine summer day, one sees a swarm of flies hovering in the air some twenty metres to the left, what is beneath them (and out of one's line of sight) is more apt to be a fresh, steaming turd or a recently deceased animal than a bar of gold.
This is to be kept in mind when coming across a blog entry from the Millionth Monkey on the Fed-Treasury-Wall Street that has elicited no less than 180 comments in the 16 hours since publication.
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6 Comments:
Why do you want to a have comments? It is a good sign not to have comments because that means you have a good web and don´t publish biased posts which attract all kind of vulgar people to insult between them.
I think that was my point about the flies in the field. Thanks for your kind words.
I can excuse ZH's many and varied flaws because of one virtue. Namely, ZH is feeding the backlash against the banks, and making it more difficult for Geithner/Kohn/Bernanke/Summers and their ilk to bail out their bondholders. As far as I'm concerned that is a valuable public service.
I do a lot of work with oil and gas and mining. When I visit companies, the blue collar folks are irate about the bailouts. They are furious that Geithner and co didn't force all troubled banks and insurers into bankruptcy or FDIC receivership. If Geithner and co do any more bailouts, I fear a populist backlash that will elect wackos or even resort to violence.
I can understand your point. And I think that places like GS and Citi should be broken up just as Ma Bell was and that the guv should have taken the good bank-bad bank option in the case of the cripples. On the other hand, to satanize Wall Street doesn't do any justice to the larger problem and is not a very complete solution, although some action in that direction might do something to calm nerves.
Almost everybody bought into the technological paradise pipe dream at the same time as economic theory proved itself not very valuable, in a policy sense, in an economy where basic needs were more than met and credit flowed easily. The guilty party is the era and no amount of shouting whatever comes into TD's head is going to change that.
My private conspiracy theory, based on the ease with which he got Hal Turner onto CNBC, is that he's a mole planted to discredit criticism.
'They are all incompetent, short sighted, and unlucky' is sadly a feeble rallying cry, however true. 'They're evil, let's get them' has been rousing the rabble for millennia: why let the truth get in the way of public relations?
"Beelzebub of the bicycle"...a classic.
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