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Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

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Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#41

Post by tomp »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #38
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…

Could you link to a couple of examples? I am not interested enough to go searching. I did find an anti-vaxxer piece on the frontpage, which did not exactly inspire trust: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-sh...

> Some very, very powerful and influential people are terrified of it and are doing everything they can to make sure it never sees the light of day. Which makes me infinitely more curious.

Which is quite solid logic - why would "they" want to ban something unless they're afraid of it?

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#42

Post by 21 »

tobltobs wrote: post #11
chollida1 wrote: post #7

If no one has been to the site before here it is: http://www.zerohedge.com/ Believe it or not it has a huge following in the finance world due to it often being one of the first ones to break or provide color on important stories. It's not uncommon at all to see a row of traders with tweet deck open allocating a single column to Zero hedge, they are just that prolific with their output. The downside of the site is th…

> first ones to break or provide color on important stories. No question about the color, but do you have an example for those "break on important stories".

In 2009, when WHO upgraded the bird-flu scare to a "pandemic level 6", I heard the news first on the ZH Twitter. Only one-two hours later did the usual agencies also reported this (probably because they were verifying it).

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#43

Post by tcoppi »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #38
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…

Could you link to a couple of examples? I am not interested enough to go searching. I did find an anti-vaxxer piece on the frontpage, which did not exactly inspire trust: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-sh...

They post things like this all the time. I would take it not as them editorially advocating the position, but rather getting information otherwise censored by other media out there. Sometimes the information is not reported for good reason, such as this. You need a very good BS and relevancy filter to find the few nuggets of gold that are put out maybe a few times a year by ZH.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#44

Post by libertymcateer »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #9

ZH is the infowars of the financial world.

Hear hear.

This site has long been a bewildering mishmash of doomsaying and cassandra-like apocalyptic predictions - but the other shoe has simply never dropped. During the days when the financial crisis was hot and fresh this brand of naysaying seemed really insightful and prescient - but, in retrospect, it was just something of a firehose of "short the system."

That a lot of analysts read it doesn't make it credible. A lot of politicos read infowars too - it doesn't mean it isn't mostly hyped up garbage.

Far too many of their headlines are too sensationalist and make too many testable claims and predictions - they are chicken little, and the sky simply hasn't fallen.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#45

Post by 21 »

dismal2 wrote: post #34
tobltobs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> breaks news before a lot of outlets Any examples?

All their coverage of hft when nobody was talking about it

The usual coverage of HFT on ZH is like this:

Gold price spikes down, it's the HFT slamming it because they work for the Central Banks. Gold price spikes up, it's because investors are concerned about the market.

Stocks spike up, it's the HFT again. Stocks spike down - investors start seeing that the whole market is a scam.

So the HFT trade only in the "wrong" direction according to ZH. They sell gold and buy stocks. Never the other way around. I'm exaggerating, but only a bit, there were a few articles which blamed HFT for "right" moves (gold up, stocks down).

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#46

Post by jazzyk »

tobltobs wrote: post #32
jazzyk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is shock value, it is because ZH focuses on facts (yes, they are usually well documented facts), which the so called mainstream media chooses to ignore, because the narrative does not suit their corporate owners. Most of ZH's reporting is backed by numbers coming from other sources. They also report rumors ahead of everyone else, which seem implausible, but later turn out to be facts and reported by other ou…

"ZH focuses on facts". Seriously? >They also report rumors ahead of everyone else, which seem implausible, but later turn out to be facts ... Sure, if you spitting out rumors all day there will be one or two cases per year where you hit a nail.

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 jobs
ZH often reports facts from official government reports/documents - they are typically buried on page 99 out of 100 (for a reason).

Some people may choose to call the above rumors or "sensationalism" - feel free to ignore ZH, it is a free country.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#47

Post by actionwords »

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…

About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted

Clearly you don't realize that fascists would increase taxes AND social welfare.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#48

Post by natrius »

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…

In a world of centralized media, the incentives led outlets to promote viewpoints supported by the elite and omit viewpoints that would offend them. Their access to viewers, leads and advertising dollars required the party line product we all recognize.

In a world of decentralized media, you can't get readers to keep coming back if you're just another mainstream news source. Instead, you have to choose a niche viewpoint and convince readers that your outlet is the only place they can get information about it. This results in a competition between niche news outlets to present as extreme a viewpoint as their readers will tolerate, or create new viewpoints that can attract an audience.

The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#49

Post by cloudjacker »

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 like the insight into the Credit Default Swap market, interest rates and debt balances

that's been very useful to me

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#50

Post by spectrum1234 »

natrius wrote: post #48
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…

In a world of centralized media, the incentives led outlets to promote viewpoints supported by the elite and omit viewpoints that would offend them. Their access to viewers, leads and advertising dollars required the party line product we all recognize. In a world of decentralized media, you can't get readers to keep coming back if you're just another mainstream news source. Instead, you have to choose a niche viewpo…

"The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable."

Maybe, but let's never forget centralized media is much, much worse. Many seem to forget this unfortunately. Choice is always a good thing.

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