A New Rule for Discussing Economics

I don’t think much of Critical Race Theory. But there is one thing derived from it that I sometimes want to emulate. I’m talking about the idea of White Privilege – i.e., that if you are White, you should shut up about racial issues because, being White, you cannot know how debilitating it is to be the great, great, great grandchild of a slave.

I’d like to impose that concept on people that want to talk about business, economics, finance, and anything related to wealth and poverty.

Recently, I spent on hour sitting next to three acquaintances that were talking about how “exploitative” capitalism is. One of them is a college professor. Another is essentially a trust fund child. And the third has spent his/her adult life being supported by his/her spouse. None of them has ever managed a real business, let alone owned one.

This lack of real-world economic understanding did not restrain them from speaking with authority about how business owners should allocate their profits, how much the government should tax those profits, how much they should pay their employees, etc. They all seemed to believe that labor is the most valuable part of any manufactured good. And that labor should be rewarded with the lion’s share of the profits.

They shared a negative view of capitalism, although it was clear from their conversation that they didn’t have any idea of what capitalism is or how it came to be or how it transformed the world from a state where 80+% of the world population lived in medieval poverty to a global economy where less than 20% of the population is that poor.

I wanted to say that capitalism isn’t something that was invented by a cartel of rich White guys, as they seemed to believe. In fact, it wasn’t invented at all. Capitalism is simply a description of an economic system that evolved over hundreds of years everywhere in the world where people were free to buy and sell and trade their goods and their labor without the force of violence.

But socialism/communism was an invention. It was invented in the 19th century by Marx and Engels. And, as a theory, it became an immediate success. Despite causing the deaths of millions and ruining the economies of dozens of countries, it is still wildly popular in academia, politics, and Hollywood. It has also been supported by the dozens of industries and thousands of companies that are in the business of profiting from government and academic programs that support socialist ideas.

I wanted to say that, but I didn’t. The views of my three acquaintances had been formed over decades by reading and watching the daily news through the filter of media that held to the original Marx/Engels theoretical perspective. I could think of only one thing that could possibly dislodge their convictions: starting and running a successful business for longer than it would take for their grubstake to dry up.

That would put them in the center of the real economy, where how much you pay for something, how much you charge for something, and how much you pay your employees can only be done by following the natural rules of supply and demand. Theory, no matter how much you want to believe it, will not pay the bills.

Which brings me back to adopting CRT’s privilege concept for business and economic conversations: “Unless you have run a successful business for at least five years, don’t talk. Just listen.”

Can you see it on a t-shirt?

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The End of Unbiased Reporting

The Ubiquity of Advocacy Journalism

And the Elon Musk BBC Interview

Reporting the facts, and all the facts, fairly and impartially, was once the acknowledged standard of journalism. It wasn’t always met. But it was, at least, a standard that all respectable news media accepted.

To be sure, there has always been a secondary source of information that presented itself as news but was devoted to other objectives. I’m thinking of the supermarket tabloids, which were fun, but meant to be fun. Nobody with any sense took them seriously. And there have always been periodicals with political, social, and economic viewpoints, but they didn’t present themselves as reporting the news.

Such viewpoints could also be seen in the daily news, whether in print or on TV, but they were always relegated to the editorial and opinion pages. So, again, there was no question about the intent.

In the 1980s, those viewpoints began appearing not only on the editorial and opinion pages, but in the news reporting of some papers, too. The Washington Times, for example, was funded to provide a conservative counter-perspective to The Washington Post’s decidedly liberal slant.

And then, in 1966, Fox News was launched. In its first year, it was dismissed by the liberal media as an irrelevant and passing fad. But when its circulation skyrocketed to 17 million cable subscribers in a single year, and continued to grow, the mainstream press began to understand that holding to the old standard of fair and impartial reporting could not compete with this new strategy of curating the news to support social and political perspectives.

I got into the newsletter business in the late 1970s and was able to watch this change take place from the beginning. Until Fox came along, it was obvious that the mainstream outlets were making an effort to at least look unbiased. But as they lost market share, they began to study the way that Fox and other conservative platforms were gaining market share. And gradually, they learned to hold their noses while they adopted the same techniques.

By the time Trump was elected in 2016, the liberal mainstream media was every bit as capable as the right at employing advocacy journalism. And because Trump’s win was so shocking and scary to them and their audience, they began moving into it with a vengeance. Literally.

Today, the old standard is all but dead and forgotten. With the questionable exception of a few digital news feeds that have appeared recently, all the large media outlets – in print, on TV, and on the internet – are completely committed to promoting narratives that match their political, social, and economic views.

And most of the time, because the audience for news is split, roughly, in two, journalists are allowed to do and say just about anything, so long as it is something their audience wants to see. We saw an example of that with the leaked backroom conversations at Fox. And we saw it in the leaked backroom conversations on NBC and CBS about the BLM riots.

And you can see it here in the way this BBC journalist, in an interview about Twitter, tries to “catch” Elon Musk. (Warning for my Musk-hating friends: This will – or should – embarrass you.)

Click here.

 

Speaking of Musk… 

Yes, you guessed it. I am a huge Musk fan. I love that he spent all those billions to buy Twitter. I love that he turned over all its dirty underwear to three reporters that have been exposing the way the Justice Department and other federal agencies were colluding with Twitter to censor conservative content, including important truths about COVID. And I love that he fired 80% of the workers at Twitter and the business is still going strong.

And I love his latest move at Twitter: labeling government-funded media as government funded.

Click here.

 

I found this clip interesting, but I feel like I’m wrong…

There is athleticism involved. It is a kind of scientific experiment. It’s mildly dramatic. But it’s also much ado about nothing. Right?

Two questions:

* We have all spent time pursuing purposeless objectives like this. But in the past, it was usually done solo or with a small group of likeminded friends. This guy is broadcasting his to the entire world. Is that an unexpected consequence of the ubiquity of social media?

* Also – should I be worried that clips like this capture my interest? Should you be worried if you open this link to find out?

Click here.

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“Many people won’t attempt something unless they can find an example of someone else who is already doing it. Rely on this type of thinking too much and you’ll never do anything interesting.” – James Clear

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Un Beau Matin (One Fine Morning)

Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve

Starring Léa Seydoux, Pascal Greggory, Melvil Poupaud, and Nicole Garcia

Released (US) Jan. 27, 2023

Available on several streaming services, including Amazon Prime

K had heard or read good things about this film. “It’s French,” I said to her. “Get ready for a gut-wrenching domestic drama.”

It was gut-wrenching. It was dramatic. It was French… and it was very good.

The plot is humdrum: A woman that looks to be in her late 30s is raising a young daughter, tending to her blind and demented father, and working as a translator in Paris when she runs into an old friend. He’s married with a child. They connect. The rest of the story is grim, but it’s also gripping and wonderful in a way that only French films seem to be able to do it.

A standout is Léa Seydoux, the lead, who looks like Jean Seberg in Godard’s Breathless, and who makes every scene she’s in (which is almost every scene in the movie) work. She has a face that is at once common and beautiful.

The other cast members are good, too.

Critical Reception 

* “The film’s storytelling is deceptively straightforward, rooted in realistic dialogue and Mia Hansen-Løve’s light touch as a visual stylist.” (Pat Brown, Slant Magazine)

* “This is a big movie served up in a surprisingly small, intimate package.” (Stephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine)

* “An immensely satisfying collaboration that finds both auteur and star further solidifying their spots among the greats of their respective fields.” (Jon Frosch, Hollywood Reporter)

You can watch the trailer here.

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More About Yuja Wang 

I introduced you to Yuja Wang before. After reading that piece, DF, my sister, sent me this compilation of her playing the piano, starting as a little girl.

She was amazing at four years old! And her skills clearly improved over time. But what I especially liked about this video was all the different ways she was able to go from adorable to pretty to beautiful as she grew up. (She is now in her mid-30s.)

Click here.

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There is something great about this that is beyond the performance of the man in costume. It’s about humanity. Can you see it? How would you describe it?

Click here.

 

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