I refer to the way big moves in equity markets are reported.
By PINCHAS LANDAUglobal agenda 88(photo credit: )
All those people, mostly Jews, obsessed by the double standards supposedly employed by the media, can add another item to their list. It's not actually new, but recent events have served to highlight it to a degree perhaps unprecedented. I refer to the way big moves in equity markets are reported.
When markets fall by an unusually large amount in a single day or week - read sink, plunge, swoon, collapse, crash - the response in both the financial and mainstream press is to run massive headlines that scream about "Black [fill in the day of the week]," report that this or that market fell by X percent, or, in the age of globalization, that "markets around the world recorded sharp falls."
Most importantly, these reports always - but always - remember to tell their readers/listeners/viewers that "share saw X billion (or trillion on a really bad day) dollars (or whatever) trimmed/sliced/shorn from their value."
The latter statement, even if technically and arithmetically true, is always absolutely meaningless to the readers/listeners/viewers. The sole point of saying it is to convey the idea that something very big happened, involving very large amounts of money. However, to write or say "a helluvalotta money evaporated today" is still unacceptable, although it would do the job perfectly well.
But the phraseology is secondary. The real point I want to make is that you will almost never find the inverse headlines about a market rise. For example, the main share indices on the American stock exchanges rose one day this week by 3%-4%. (This is not what you will read/hear/see; rather that "Wall Street rose by 400 points," which is literally and substantively meaningless, but never mind.) The media on the next day carried no screaming headlines, and no one even tried to figure out how many billions, trillions or zillions had been ADDED to share values. People supposedly jump out of windows when markets slump; at least they did in 1929. How comes no one ever jumps back in when they soar?
It's easy to be flippant, but this is actually a very serious issue because it tells us a lot about several important matters. Firstly, about the media. It proves yet again, if further proof was needed, that the media prefer bad news to good news. This is not necessarily because the media are inherently bad, vicious and evil. It is because bad news is more interesting and sells better.
Secondly, according to statistics, markets generally fall harder and faster than they rise. Of course, in the long term, markets rise and keep on rising; wealth is created in efficient capitalist economies and the value of publicly traded corporations increases - that's ultimately why share prices go up, taking indices and markets with them. But that's a slow, humdrum, day-by-day, year-by-year process. Even in a bull market, sharp gains are rare and a good day is when prices rise by more than 1%; 2% percent is a big move, and anything more than that is simply rare.
The downside is different, especially in a bear market, and most particularly when a speculative run comes to an end. Then prices fall in multi-percent lurches and individual stocks or commodities can lose tens of percent in a single day. In short, the downside really is more dramatic.
Thirdly, people making money generally don't want to make a big noise about it. If they're Jews, they'll say they are afraid of the ayin hara, but gentiles - especially pagans - have their own versions of that. More rational people will say that it's none of anyone else's business if they have or make money. On the other hand, when they are losing money, people want to spread the word around, so that others will also lose and the woe will spread. That way one of two good things should happen: a) they won't feel so bad if others share their woe; b) if enough people are in trouble, the government might be persuaded to step in and bail them all out - using innocent taxpayers' money of course.
landaup@netvision.net.il
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