TW: As Ritholz say mixing politics and investing is a recipe for disaster. Now that Murdoch et al. have control of the Wall Street Journal watch out. As he frames the editorial pages of the WSJ have always been a swamp of right-wing polemics in opposition to any and all even marginally progressive ideas. The actual business news pages were far less partisan, this appears to be changing for the worse.
From Barry Ritholz at his Big Picture blog:
"The politicalization of the WSJ has moved to a new and more risky phase. The paper is now in danger of being a money loser — not for its investors (tho that has already happened), but for those traders who read its content.
It used to be that articles on the Market or specific companies or various finance stories were objective and reliable and free from bias. Sure, you could always count on money losing, bat-shit crazy nonsense in the editorial pages, but that was a special area of sequestered partisans, who due to their insanity cared not a whit about how much capital their lunatic ravings lost their readers. (The list is long and varied, but the Boskin “Obama Crash” on March 6th is a good place to start; then read anything Don Luskin writes — he is a reliable contrary indicator).
I assumed the drunks on the OpEd page did not care about what they did to your portfolio if you drank their Kool-Aid. But they were easy to steer clear of — you simply avoided that page, or read it and laughed. Smart investors could easily say “Go sell crazy somewhere else –we ain’t buying.” That was possible because you knew that the business pages were sacrosanct, always run with a steel-eyed objectivity that professionals could rely upon.
That is no longer the case. The lunatics now run the asylum, and henceforth, I am moving the WSJ into the column of “Stuff to read, but not take very seriously.”
I am bereft over this. This is a major change for me, for I have loved this paper for years, even decades. I read the Times (along with many other papers), but as someone who works in finance, I marveled at the quality and breadth of the business reportage at the Journal. Accuracy was paramount, political bias limited to the cartoon (Opinion) pages. For a long time, it was the best paper in America.
Those days are now ending.
...Politics and investing are a fatal combination to performance.
....Hence, I must now move the Journal out of my column of “Essential investor reads,” and into the column marked “Infotainment.” Under Murdoch, the paper has become politicized to the point of losing a significant portion of its value.
Investors beware."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/01/wsj-jumps-the-shark/
Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wall street journal. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Damn Them, Damn Them All To Hell
From the WSJ editorial page:
"The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House"
TW: Let me attempt to parse this a bit.
1) Criticism of Bush reflects our "lack of character and resolve"- I would argue the antithesis and that his re-election in '04 reflected many things on our collective electorate's part, most of them bad.
2) "The POTUS is not to blame for all these problems"- for all of the problems, no; for creating several of them (i.e. Iraq) and exacerbating many more (Katrina, the economy), ummm...yes.
3) "He never lost faith in America...and has tried his hardest"- what the fug else was he supposed to do, are we to credit him for this most basic attribute of leadership.
4) The piece de resistance- I will paraphrase, "the failure to provide W. blind loyalty is treasonous". The day anyone asks for blind loyalty your spouse, your boss or your POTUS run, run hard and do not stop ever. The executive leadership under George Walker Bush saw 9/11 as a ticket to do whatever they felt they needed to do regardless of the Constitution, Congress, our Allies or any other alternative powers. Their toadies in the press led by the Weekly Standard, the WSJ editorial board, Fox News etc. have sought to propagandize this approach. To the extent anyone has followed their lead, shame on you.
As others have pointed out we shall see how much "aid and comfort to the enemy" the same "loyal Americans" at Fox, WSJ and Weekly Standard provide once they unleash their vitriol on President Barack Obama.
"The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House"
TW: Let me attempt to parse this a bit.
1) Criticism of Bush reflects our "lack of character and resolve"- I would argue the antithesis and that his re-election in '04 reflected many things on our collective electorate's part, most of them bad.
2) "The POTUS is not to blame for all these problems"- for all of the problems, no; for creating several of them (i.e. Iraq) and exacerbating many more (Katrina, the economy), ummm...yes.
3) "He never lost faith in America...and has tried his hardest"- what the fug else was he supposed to do, are we to credit him for this most basic attribute of leadership.
4) The piece de resistance- I will paraphrase, "the failure to provide W. blind loyalty is treasonous". The day anyone asks for blind loyalty your spouse, your boss or your POTUS run, run hard and do not stop ever. The executive leadership under George Walker Bush saw 9/11 as a ticket to do whatever they felt they needed to do regardless of the Constitution, Congress, our Allies or any other alternative powers. Their toadies in the press led by the Weekly Standard, the WSJ editorial board, Fox News etc. have sought to propagandize this approach. To the extent anyone has followed their lead, shame on you.
As others have pointed out we shall see how much "aid and comfort to the enemy" the same "loyal Americans" at Fox, WSJ and Weekly Standard provide once they unleash their vitriol on President Barack Obama.
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