Hartmann catches CNN and its analyst in an exercise in deception.

[seafan]

I heard this exchange in the third hour of Thom Hartmann yesterday, February 24, 2009, and thought it was important to expose more widely. It is but one example, yet a glaring one, of how something as routine as an economic data chart can be deliberately misused by the television media and self-styled 'experts' to lie to viewers.



(The following transcript of Hartmann and caller is very closely reproduced.)



Thom Hartmann with caller Mike in LA:

Caller "Mike": Recently, the media has been making daily links between the stock market decline and the policies of the Obama administration , but the media never made such a linkage between Wall Street and the Bush administration until a year after a recession was confirmed. A YEAR. An international meltdown was in progress… deficits, bailouts had become the norm…. the integrity of the market was put into question. And 8 years of Republican policies and their criminalization of government was completed. The media’s claim of linkage between the two is not supported by any financial data, period. Just pillow talk from partisan commentators…. The media…every day, the Dow’s down…. 'Oh, Barack did this.... The Dow’s up... --No sounds--. The Dow’s down.... 'This could be Barack’s policies creating this…'..


Hartmann: Tim Geithner talked today…. You know it’s really absurd. Last night I had one of those screaming at the television moments…. I am staying with a friend of mine, Ron Hartenbaum (sp?), here in Manhattan, and we were watching CNN, and Ali Velshi had this chart of the last 10 years of the economy. (Actually) of the Dow, not the economy, because the Dow is NOT the economy... but the Dow Jones Industrial average, and he said the Dow is back to where it was in the year 1987 or 1997, I think he said 1997.

(I was) looking at it (Velshi's chart), and there was this giant gap at the bottom in the grid... this giant gap on the bottom and then a somewhat smaller gap above that, and a somewhat smaller gap above that.... I looked at that and said, ‘That’s a LOGARITHMIC SCALE’, not a linear scale, so it didn’t show the bubble! So it looked like the stock market went up after ’87 or ’97 and then it kind of leveled off, leveled off, and then it *crashed* when Obama came into office, when Bush was leaving. And if you had shown that on a linear scale, an actual “one square equals one dollar” scale, it would be a completely different thing!

You know, a logarithmic scale is where the first increment equals 1 to ten; the second increment equals 1 to a hundred; the third increment equals 1 to a thousand; the fourth increment equals 1 to ten thousand; …and so what happens is, all of the wild bumps all get evened out!

And I’m (yelling), "Ali Velshi! Why are you showing a logarithmic scale???" And then they show the Dow from the last 2 weeks, and it’s on a linear scale, rather than a log scale. And the reason why, obviously is that, first of all, most Americans weren’t paying attention in high school when taking math, and if they were, they didn’t remember, and they’re not noticing this! They are just figuring , “hey, these are the numbers… hey, look at that… it’s not so bad... it’s just a little bit of a bump..” but if you were seeing it on a real scale, a real, actual linear scale, you’d say, “HOLY COW, WE HAD ONE HELL OF A BUBBLE!”


Caller "Mike": It’s kind of like saying the best way to stop the deficit is to spend more so that the Republicans can never do it again.


Hartmann: Yeah, well now, you’re back into Jude Wanniski’s ‘Two Santa Claus’ theory... and David Stockman's ‘starve the beast’ theory.... You know, ‘Let’s run the government into such bad debt, that the Democrats can’t have things like Social Security and national health care.' I mean, it’s just a crime. All the crimes that are… the economic crimes that have been committed by the Bush administration, by the Republicans and a few of the conservative Democrats, frankly.... let’s just be honest about this…. are abhorrent, they are over the top, they are wrong, they shouldn’t have happened, they shouldn’t BE happening.

Just another example of why Republicans want to dumb down education. An informed populace is a danger to the survival of Republicans.


And so are a strong middle class, thriving unions, Social Security, national single-payer health care, and a de-consolidated media.



Last night's address by President Obama was an exquisite surgical strike in the fight against a dying ideology in final, spectacular flameout.

[Froward69]

1. Hear Here!!!!

gutting Public school... scaling back college aid...

The dumber the electorate the more republicans.