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Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

bloomberg.com

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Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#111

Post by spuiszis »

MajesticHobo wrote: post #3

ZH's response: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

This is 100% worth reading. From ZH authors:

> Regarding, the actual content of Bloomberg's platform giving voice to a disturbed individual, former drug dealer and alcoholic, we find it particularly amusing as it "accuse" Zero Hedge of being intent on generating profits.

> Coming from Bloomberg we find this not only entertaining but somewhat hypocritical.

> Incidentally, the chart above may explain why none other than our "competitor" Bloomberg decided it was its mission to voice a grievance of a disgruntled former employee who admitted it was his intention to "destroy" Zero Hedge.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#112

Post by dismal2 »

jonstokes wrote: post #98

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site wa…

What do you think about the rally now? I too have been following the site since it started. Around 2011 or so I realized I was missing the greatest rally, possibly ever, but I was an unemployed millennial with no money to invest.

In the past 2 years or so I'm finally on a good financial footing but I really think this monetary experiment is coming to an end and I dont think I'm thinking that only from reading doom media.

Hope I'm wrong, because another downturn would be bad for this country.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#113

Post by GigabyteCoin »

jonstokes wrote: post #98

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site wa…

Running a story with whatever the latest gossip on twitter happens to be is not news. Sure you'll get lucky occasionally, but let's be realistic here.

If you don't care at all about journalistic integrity, then why not just follow the trending twitter hashtags yourself from their search page?

You'll get your news even faster that way.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#114

Post by dismal2 »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #91
giardini wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I disagree. I don't have an interest in digging through ZH posts to prove my point, but in general the spin of the site is conspiratorial in nature. Whether it's the Fed is in it with the banks to provide free money to prop up the market, or the BLS number are not to be believed or trusted, or any other number of reoccurring themes, ZH is a conspiracy site.

The Fed, by it's own admission, saved the world from financial Armageddon during the last crisis by acting as a lender of last resort to many a large financial institutions. They also had private meetings with banks to try and stabilize the markets.

Whether they went too far with their monetary policy is something that we will only find out with time, but there is nothing conspiratorial here.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#115

Post by vinceguidry »

tptacek wrote: post #86
tomp wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I got curious so I went to the site to take a look. I'd put them in the same vein as survivalists, people who take such excessive interest and pleasure in knowing "how the real world works," that they miss the bigger picture. Not aggressively wrong about everything, but you can safely ignore them because their motivations get in the way of real truth.

Fun to hang out with, though.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#116

Post by wyck »

MajesticHobo wrote: post #3

ZH's response: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

Important context to see both sides, certainly a questionable liability they knew about, I guess he worked so hard they felt it was a risk worth taking, which brings their judgement into question.

The fact that all this drama is being publicly aired and used as a weapon does not put Zero Hedge in a good light, it's almost like Bloomberg baited them into this defensive posture.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#117

Post by alva »

saalweachter wrote: post #76
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…

Another important point-- once you get into the conspiracy theory mindset, it's not so much that a conspiracy or some conspiracies happen. There's a tendency to believe that all conspiracies are true, even the contradictory ones. Your average conspiracy theorist doesn't just believe the NSA is spying on Americans [they better be spying on non-Americans; we taxpayers are paying them a lot of money to do so] or that Pu…

> You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing

Not sure how true this is. There are certainly a lot of vocal conspiracy theorists online who match your description. Unfortunately these are lumped together to discredit genuine conspiracy theories ( market manipulation, Hillsborough etc ) when they exist. It is a powerful tool to diminish investigation.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#118

Post by tunap »

apercu wrote: post #70
tomp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value in ZH is that their sensationalism is pretty much the reverse of most other mainstream media. "Anti-establishment" as they say.

That's fair, I haven't read it.

You should. You should also take it for what it is, infotainment. I find reading an extreme viewpoint can be very informative after the alternative extreme is considered and skeptical comparisons are made. Finding the biases becomes easier, determining who is being more disingenuous is still tough. I must also be able to recognize & account for my bias/interest in the topic, as well.

Back on topic: I know corruption can exist in any institution and lobbyists with the biggest bag of donations tend to win the laws that make their spurious practices 'legal', but I'm quite satisfied the majority of ZH's predictions haven't come to fruition. There is no solace in large-scale failure of any systems. One thing is for sure, when one does happen, you can bet a large number of ZH commentors will invoke "I told you so!".

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#119

Post by jonstokes »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #113
jonstokes wrote: post #98

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site wa…

Running a story with whatever the latest gossip on twitter happens to be is not news. Sure you'll get lucky occasionally, but let's be realistic here. If you don't care at all about journalistic integrity, then why not just follow the trending twitter hashtags yourself from their search page? You'll get your news even faster that way.

I get what you're saying, but it's not quite like that with ZH. Those guys may not do a bunch of legwork, but they have good instincts for which stories are likely to be worth following up on and which are just lizard man nonsense. Their instincts act as a kind of initial filter.

There are other sites you can go to if you just want to see anything and everything (and there's always Twitter), but the value of ZH (which I probably should've spelled out in the parent) is that they do an initial pass with their noise filter, and while there's still a ton of noise there's also enough signal there after they've done their thing that it's still worthwhile.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#120

Post by pfarnsworth »

jonstokes wrote: post #98

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site wa…

I lost about $100k in 2009 buying into the ZH-gloom and doom mentality, unfortunately. Everything they said made sense, but it just wasn't how the world works.
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