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Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

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Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#81

Post by giardini »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #35
maze-le wrote: post #16

I stopped reading this site some years ago. It had, and probably still has some interesting opinins and analysis. Most content is pretty far fetched / sensationalist, but if you have your grain of salt, this is not a problem, since most media outlets do this in one form or another. About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When…

>I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism Like any conspiracy site, it's going to attract people who share a view of the world in which everything must be orchestrated, controlled - a reason for all things. Randomness has no place in the mind of a conspiracy theorist. The order provided by conspiracies comfort the conspiracy theorist: paradoxically making the world feel safer, more ordered while…

Zero Hedge is NOT a conspiracy site.

I don't know why you make that claim except that, once you did, many other posts on this forum followed suit. In all honesty your claim (that zerohedge is a conspiracy site) and the ensuing posts looks more like conspiracy (blog-spamming or blog-misdirection) than does zerohedge.

zerohedge WAS once a decent current economics site that sometimes featured excellent articles but the responses of members began to decay. Today the responses are mostly noise and I rarely bother to visit zerohedge.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#82

Post by bitchypat »

base698 wrote: post #51
jazzyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example of focusing on facts: 1. The government releases a report with an important indicator looking good 2. Mainstream Media cheers, telling us how good we have it 3. ZH looks at the report and notices that: - the number was "seasonally adjusted" once, then again - the number will be revised down, a month later usually on a late Friday at happy hour - pesky details: employment growth is in part-time, minimum-wage j…

Do you have any good links for the employment posts on ZH? I was telling someone about that recently then couldn't find it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-25/there-problem-bls-e...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-03/adp-employment-grow...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-20/ominous-signs-peak-...

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#84

Post by tomp »

snake_plissken wrote: post #74

I have a love hate relationship with Zerohedge. On the one hand, they can produce some really amazing and compelling content, whether its their own analysis or an analysis of an article from somewhere else on the web. A recent article of memory: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/what-just-happened-... . But over the years the site's tone has changed. While they are still dedicated to financial news and insight…

That aritcle actually has an interesting follow up.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-21/something-blowing-o...

Basically... they were right! (You can cite this as an example of quality reporting or as an example of cherry-picking research...)

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#85

Post by tomp »

base698 wrote: post #51
jazzyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example of focusing on facts: 1. The government releases a report with an important indicator looking good 2. Mainstream Media cheers, telling us how good we have it 3. ZH looks at the report and notices that: - the number was "seasonally adjusted" once, then again - the number will be revised down, a month later usually on a late Friday at happy hour - pesky details: employment growth is in part-time, minimum-wage j…

Do you have any good links for the employment posts on ZH? I was telling someone about that recently then couldn't find it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-04/past-year-us-added-...

In The Past Year, The U.S. Added 360,000 Waiters And Only 12,000 Manufacturing Workers

(not sure this is an example of what you were looking for)

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#86

Post by tptacek »

tomp wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? That's not analysis, it's numerology. Just because some things are true doesn't mean all theories are equally deserving of dignity. But the notion that the USG was monitoring the Internet was entirely deserving of dignity: * It's their job * The software security industry is full of people who used to hack professionally for them * There'd been a major news story roughly every other year since the 1990s Eche…

This is basically the no true Scotsmann argument. Things that I believe in aren't conspiracy theories, because I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I'm just better informed. In any case, maybe we're a bit off point here, but what ZH posts is definitely closer to "NSA is spying on everybody" than to "lizards run the world" or "moon landing never happened".

I think ZH is closer to the lizards-running-the-world stuff.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#88

Post by logfromblammo »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #54
tomp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, all people who were saying that NSA is spying on the whole internet (before Snowden, that was the conspiracy) were secretly authoritarian?!

No. I'm speaking about people who spend most of their time online on conspiracy sites. I should know, I used to be one of them. I was 17 when 9/11 happened and spent most of the early 2000's reading about lizard people, the Illuminati and the bilderberg group. I'm ashamed to admit it, but once upon a time I was a daily reader of Alex Jones. There are conspiracies. They exist. But I'm mostly speaking to the mindset of…

I also used to be one of them, until I formed the meta-conspiracy-theory.

What if conspiracy theory sites and groups are just part of a conspiracy that exists to monitor, marginalize, and distract conspiracy theorists? What if the only thing that gives the conspiracy any power at all is the weight of the conspiracy theories behind it?

And that's when I spackled over the cracks in my pot, stopped looking for evidence of malicious intent in everything, and washed my hands of all of it.

I still think that there is a massive international conspiracy of rich and powerful individuals, but I also believe that they don't have nearly as much control as anyone thinks they have, including themselves. They have the illusion of control.

For instance, they can propel lobbying efforts to pass trade deals which would "normalize" copyright in 20+ different countries, and then everyone just ignores it and torrents the latest episode of Game of Thrones anyway. They can buy up all the newspapers, and then everyone suddenly stops reading them, so they all have to merge or go bankrupt. They lobby for strict environmental controls, to preserve their huge tracts of land. People subtly cheat or blatantly and overtly break the law whenever the cops aren't watching. Or the vendors cheat on behalf of their customers, just to stay in business. They can manipulate currencies and equities and get even richer, but a hired cook will still piss in their morning coffee or feed them a slice of doodoo pie.

The conspiracy theorists may actually be supporting them, by ascribing to them powers and abilities that they do not actually possess. When the elites gather in Davos, they aren't plotting the future course of the world economy, like everyone thinks. They're patting themselves on the back, getting drunk, doing drugs, and cheating on their spouses in posh hotel rooms, all the while toasting the fact that the proles hadn't erected the guillotines since the last meeting. They remind themselves how important they are, and then return to the world that will briefly roll its eyes at them before getting back to the work it was already doing.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#90

Post by mactitan »

base698 wrote: post #51
jazzyk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example of focusing on facts: 1. The government releases a report with an important indicator looking good 2. Mainstream Media cheers, telling us how good we have it 3. ZH looks at the report and notices that: - the number was "seasonally adjusted" once, then again - the number will be revised down, a month later usually on a late Friday at happy hour - pesky details: employment growth is in part-time, minimum-wage j…

Do you have any good links for the employment posts on ZH? I was telling someone about that recently then couldn't find it.

Fyi: john Crudele reports on employment at the nypost ; he gets inside info from census (which he blasts) Years ago he reported on plunge protection team(ppt- market manipulation) that i was skeptical about. I no longer am.
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