BiggerPockets Article: 7 Ways to Prevent Fraud and Employee Theft in Your Real Estate Business11/30/2018 I forgot to post this article I wrote for BiggerPockets a little while back, but I think it's an important one. Fraud and theft are some of the biggest losses that businesses face and can be absolutely fatal for new businesses and entrepreneurs. Professionals have come up with seven ways to reduce the likelihood of such theft that are critically important to implement in your business. They are:
1. Separation of Duties 2. Access Control 3. Physical Audits 4. Standardized Documentation 5. Trial Balances 6. Periodic Reconciliations 7. Approval Authority I go into much greater detail in the article, so please check it out.
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I should have reposted this article a while back during the Kavanaugh hearings when the Supreme Court was in news, because I think this old article that was written before gay marriage was legalized on the national level and discusses the weird contradiction between the Left's love of democracy and how their biggest victories tend to come in antidemocratic ways.
We’ve written before in favor of gay marriage, so I guess I’m happy to see Prop 8 overturned by a federal judge. Unfortunately, we’ve also written in favor of federalism and I see nothing in the Constitution pertaining to marriage either way. Regardless, I find the progressive “victory” yesterday somewhat ironic. The reason I find it ironic is because although gay marriage is a cause célèbre for progressives, assuming the federal ruling holds up, the progressive “victory” was won in a completely undemocratic way. Indeed, 52% of California voters voted in favor of the bill, not a strong majority, but a majority nonetheless. This throws a wrench into the ‘everything goes if it happens democratically’ mantra that Democrats seem to hold now that Obama is in office. Nancy Pelosi even had the gall to ask if a man was joking when he asked her where in the Constitution it said that the federal government could mandate people to buy health insurance!
So the rule of law is irrelevant when it comes to healthcare reform, but it’s all well and good with regards to gay marriage? Indeed, leaving aside the issue of states’ rights and the balance of power between the federal government and state governments, the issue of gay marriage is really something that should not be voted on anyways (marriage is a contract, it should be protected by the government, not licensed by the government).
But yet the left goes on and on about democracy. Everything should be voted on. Noam Chomsky discusses how if we had a functioning democracy everything would be dandy and Michael Moore, in his movie decrying the evils of capitalism, calls for nothing other than pure 100% democracy. Every decision, from politics, to the workplace to everything in between should be made democratically. Barack Obama, as well as Bush and every other politician, celebrate democracy at every chance they get (even while undermining it). But here we have a case where the left wins a victory by going around democracy. What do we make of this? Democracy may be good, but I would argue that it is good only to a limited extent. There are certain rights we shouldn’t be able to vote away from each other, for example the freedom of speech. We should also remember that Hitler came to power in a democracy, ancient Athens built an empire under a form of direct democracy, George Bush was re-elected in 2004 and Saddam Hussein got 100% of the popular vote (OK that one’s not really fair). Detractors will surely say that democracy isn’t perfect but it is still good, as Winston Churchill said “democracy is the absolute worst type of government, aside by every other one.” Sure, but democracy needs limits. Namely it needs a constitution (rule of law) based on natural rights (your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins), separation of powers to limit collusion and a functioning version of federalism to prevent a monopoly of interpretation on said constitution. I personally think the United States is doing pretty bad in all four departments, but that’s for another article. Our discussion here involves democracy. And unbridled democracy alone is simply mob rule, the power of the 51% to take away the rights of the 49%. It’s what Thomas Jefferson referred to as “two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for dinner” while liberty was “a well armed lamb protesting the vote.” James Madison was more explicit: “The prescriptions in favor of liberty, ought to be levelled against the quarter where the greatest danger lies, namely, that which possesses the highest prerogative of power: But this [is] not found in either the executive or legislative departments of government, but in the body of the people, operating by the majority against the minority.”
Indeed, the Founders, other than Thomas Paine, were not big fans of democracy. That’s why the United States was actually set up as a constitutional republic. Now, democracy certainly has its place. But on major decisions—such as going to war—something much closer to unanimity should be required. As a matter of efficiency, day in and day out decisions should not be made in an ad populum sort of way. The people with the most expertise and the most at stake should typically make such decisions. And for issues such as gay marriage, issues involving private arrangements that don’t affect anyone else, the government has no place there regardless of whether we’ve voted on it or not.
Check out my latest livestream on estimating rehab costs. I reference Brandon Turner's great article on how to estimate rehab costs, which you can see here as well as J. Scott's book which is required reading on the subject, which you can buy here. You can also check out my articles onputting together a scope of work and finding good contractors.
Enjoy!
And check out my previous livestreams with BiggerPockets as well:
Previous Livestreams: - The 10 Most Important Real Estate Calculations - Should You Manage Yourself or Hire a Property Management Company? - A Guide to BRRRR Investing - How to Find Banks to Lend to You - How to Work with Tenants - How to Invest in Student Housing - How to Convince a Bank to Lend to You - Due Diligence for Real Estate
Happy Thanksgiving to all on this, the best holiday on the books! Enjoy the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, football and heated/pointless political arguments with your inlaws!
Here's an article I wrote for SwiftEconomics reviewing The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which is easily the best way to stop smoking around. (So much so that I wrote another review specifically for this site.) If you're a smoker, you need to read this book! Allen Carr’s classic book is possibly the most important book I ever read. I hadn’t smoke that long and I would like to think I would have quit eventually anyway. But then again, I had “succeeded” a few times and had gone back every time. So the fact that this book helped me quit (or as Allen Carr describes it, escape) smoking for good says something in and of itself. Indeed, at the time I bought the book about a year and half ago the book had over 1000 ratings on Amazon.com and still had a five star rating! That is something I have never seen for a book with that many ratings. It has since fallen to 4 1/2 stars with about 1300 ratings, but many of the negative reviews seem to have missed the mark. For example, this one: I wish this book were true. Unfortunately, it is wishful thinking. It does not take into account the actual physical symptoms of quitting smoking. It assumes that all physical ills are psychological, which they aren’t. I am so disappointed with both the book and the reviews. This ignores one of the biggest revelations of the book; that the actual physical withdrawal pangs of nicotine withdrawal are extremely mild. As Allen Carr puts it: There is no physical pain in the withdrawal from nicotine. It is merely a slightly empty, restless feeling, the feeling that something isn’t quite right, or that something is missing… (pg. 24) Those really painful withdrawal pangs actually come from your own mind (after all, your mind, by itself, can make you physically ill). Many smokers go for long stretches, while they are distracted with a game or TV show or whatever and don’t smoke. It’s not like every smoker smokes on the hour ever hour. Often times, it’s certain cues, like leaving the house to go to work or lunch time or when the plane you’re on lands that set off the craving. As The Power of Habit demonstrated, habits can be strong and ingrained in the most primitive parts of the brain. So what’s necessary to stop smoking, since the withdrawal pangs are so slight, is to change our habits. And this involves becoming self aware of them. Specifically, asking the question; why do we smoke?
Everyone says we shouldn’t smoke because it’s unhealthy and gross and blah blah blah, but it has to provides some benefit, right? Well, no. And most of what this book does is prove that. He shows how smokers attribute contradictory benefits to smoking. For example, the excuses will be that cigarettes help with concentration and boredom as well as relaxation and stress. How could the possibly do both? Obviously, they don’t. All the cigarette does is relieve the slight physical withdrawal pang. And the brainwashing, as Allen Carr refers to it, takes over. We think we need the cigarettes, so our mind makes us need them and induces the really bad pangs people talk about when they try quit with willpower. So Carr demolishes the brainwashing to leave us with only the slight, easily tolerable physical pangs.For example, one excuse for smoking is that we smoke because we’re bored. Well, what’s more boring than smoking a cigarette? Oh yeah, smoking is boring so it probably doesn’t help relieve boredom particularly well. He has a long list of these types of excuses. So every habit has a cue, a routine and then a reward. By learning that there actually is no reward to smoking cigarettes, the cues become irrelevant very quickly. In essence, Allen Carr’s book doesn’t make it easier to quit smoking, it makes it so you don’t want to. It doesn’t take much willpower to not do something you don’t want to do. Other forms of quitting don’t work very well (I certainly tried a few of them). For example, it’s correctly claimed that nicotine replacement therapy doubles the chance of success. But then again, it doubles your chances all the way to 7%. A study in the Internal Archives of Occupational Environmental Health showed Allen Carr’s seminars to have a 12 month success rate of 51.4%. And the book’s high rating on Amazon.com lend credibility that the book does similarly well This is especially true given how it seems the message flew over many of its detractors heads. How many of those that failed just didn’t take the book, or seminar, to heart? So all in all, I highly recommend The Easy Way To Stop Smoking to anyone trying to quit, err, escape smoking. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Photo Credit: gamepasattic.ca and wikipedia.org New BiggerPockets Article: 4 Vital Tips for Tapping Into the Lucrative Niche of Student Housing11/19/2018 My new article for BiggerPockets is up on how to create a student housing rental portfolio. First I note the advantages and disadvantages of student housing (which I go into more detail here). They are: Advantages Next, I discuss the steps you need to take: 1. Pick a school and confirm it is NOT a commuter college. The "zones" by the way, look something like this: If you're interested in getting into student housing, please check out the article or the livestream my dad and I did on student housing a few months back.
Here's a more tongue-and-cheek,semi-serious article I wrote for SwiftEconomics on those Godawful time zones. I also wrote a similar article for Thought Catalog as well a while back.
We are currently in the middle of two wars, a major recession [Ed: Well we were when I wrote this], a mounting fiscal crisis and monstrosities such as Obamacare, the War on Drugs and the Patriot Act continue unabated. Everyday, people are murdered, raped and assaulted. There’s a lot of really bad stuff going on in the world. All of those things are tough to fix, unfortunately, so I’m going to turn to something trivial that just came to mind and for whatever reason I want to write about it: time zones are stupid and we should do away with them. The history of time zones sounds like some quaint artifact of the British Empire; basically Greenwich Mean Time was developed in Britain in 1675 to help mariners and then later in 1879, some Knighted Canadian dude named Sanford Fleming proposed a worldwide system of time zones and by 1929 every major country had adopted them. It’s quite boring, so if you’re interested in more detail, see here. Anyways, time zones may have served some purpose when people rarely traveled around or communicated with people far away, but now, we do so all the time. Currently I live two time zones away from my colleague who runs this site and the majority of my business associates for my work. So are we having a conference call at 2:00 my time or 2:00 their time? Why don’t we patch in that guy from New York, 4:00 pm his time and then the guy in our Japan office at God knows what time his time is and on and on and on. Then there’s traveling, a two hour flight sets me ahead four hours. My cell phone automatically updates, my alarm clock didn’t, my new computer did, my old computer didn’t. Oh and then add Daylights Savings in for more needless confusion. Yes it saves some daylight, but adds oversleeping and miscommunications and what not. I think we can think of another way to save daylight and adjust our schedules without artificially changing the time. Is this all trivial? Of course it is. But hey, this guy overslept, this guy almost missed his last final in college, this guy had to deal with a computer full of hundreds of appointments scheduled two hours off and Microsoft users all over the state of Indiana had their appointments showing an hour off. Yes, it’s nice to have the same hours everywhere you go, wake up between 6:00 to 8:00 am, go to sleep between 10:00 and 12:00 pm, etc. But even those settings are questionable. Why isn’t the time it’s dark set for am or pm and the time it’s light set for the other? Why don’t we wake up around the beginning of the day and change 6:00 or so to 12:00? Why on Earth do we have am and pm anyways? It goes to 12 and then starts over, goes to 12 again and that’s all in one day? We should switch to military time, then abolish time zones. The only real problem is that New Year’s celebrations could be at what is now 4:00 am or something like that. But hey, at least you wouldn’t be seeing a tape delayed recording of Dick Clark showing off his awesome counting skills:
So no, time zones don’t mean much and it’s sort of embarrassing that I even spent the time to write this (and you spent the time to read it). But hey, we can make the world an infinitesimally little bit better place to live by simply abolishing them. So why not?
I really liked this article from SwiftEconomics on the Great Debate: Who is a bigger douchebag? Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann? Both really took it up a notch in 2016 (see Beck's meltdown with Cruz after he endorsed Trump and Olberman's "Russian scum" conniption fit). I still hold that Olbermann wins this competition.
Glenn Beck vs. Keith Olbermann: Watching either of their shows brings us uncomfortably near the absolute epitome of douchebag, but alas, when push comes to shove, only one can be the victor. Here I will discuss their individual merits and try to determine who can rightfully claim the throne in all of its douche-filled glory. Honorable mentions go out to Bill O’Reilly, Rachel Maddow, Lou Dobbs, Nancy Grace, Chris Mathews, Greta Van Susteren and Sean Hannity. But when the chips are down, we all know that it is either Keith Olbermann or Glenn Beck who will hold the crown of greatest douchebag in the history of the world. Admittedly, during the Bush administration, I could enjoy Olbermann’s over-the-top rants a bit, and now with Obama, I can sometimes find Beck tolerable. I actually agree with Beck on most things domestic and with Olbermann on most foreign policy issues. Olbermann, while normally being a mouthpiece of the Obama administration, has occasionally criticized the Democrats and Beck has consistently attacked both parties. However, both Olbermann and Beck are so biased, so hyperbolic, so inconsistent and so utterly douche-baggish that merely enjoying the train wrecks that are their respective shows does not prove either to be any less of a train wreck. Both can make ridiculous, often hypocritical claims. Olbermann defended Cash for Clunkers, probably the dumbest program ever. His evidence was that car sales went up. Wow, when the government pays people to buy cars, car sales go up. Who would have thought? The question of whether or not destroying our wealth to increase spending was a good economic policy was not addressed. (1) He then agreed with his guest, Dan Gross, that because Republicans voted against the stimulus package, Cash for Clunkers and other government programs, “…they are heavily invested in its failure.” Of course, the same logic could be recklessly applied to Olbermann and those who opposed the war in Iraq. Since Olbermann opposed the war, is he “heavily invested” in the United States being defeated? (2) Glenn Beck also went overboard with Cash for Clunkers, claiming that the government’s website, cars.gov, attempted to “access your computer” if you signed up. The site was however, only for car dealers. (3) And he is not above changing the past to fit a narrative of the day, once saying the “[the Iraq War] was never about Saddam Hussein or weapons of mass destruction, I mean that was a bonus, it was always about getting to Iran.” (4) Huh? If the war was about getting to Iran, why invade Iraq? After all, Iran has been the big winner since the United States ousted Iran’s top foe. (5)
But Glenn Beck makes his strongest case for being the ultimate bag of douche with his passionate, unrestrained rants of douche-baggery. Beck is the king of over-the-top melodrama: whether it be crying on screen or putting some quote on his blackboard just in case we forget it. My personal favorite, though, is the time he decided that since “we don’t look each other in the eyes anymore” he would do a split screen, with one screen on him and another with a close up shot of his eyes (which were strangely enough, not looking at the camera). (6)
Keith Olbermann, on the other hand, goes back and forth between unbearably unfunny attempts at humor and unhinged, self-righteous outrage. In an example of his uncanny ability to not provoke laughter, I give you this bit he did in a discombobulated and extraordinarily awkward attempt at making fun of Sarah Palin for writing notes on her hand before a speech. You must watch it to understand, I cannot explain it. The English language simply lacks the words to clarify how unfunny this is when a standard instructions manual amounts to a George Carlin standup routine in comparison: [Unfortunately, the video got taken down, but you can read about Olbermann's """"""""joke""""""" here.] When it comes to douche-soaked, self-righteous outrage, I refer you to Olbermann’s description of then Republican Senatorial candidate, Scott Brown: “…In Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and politicians with whom he disagrees.” (7)
Olbermann later apologized for not adding the word “sexist.” (Apparently someone can support violence against women without being sexist). Surprisingly, some people actually took offense to Olbermann’s characterization of Brown. And in fact, I did too. Olbermann forgot to mention that Scott Brown was also a fascist, war-mongering, child-abusing, corporate-controlled, Islamophobic, blood-sucking vampire who not only supports violence against women, but also men, hermaphrodites, Na’vi and every animal on the planet with the exception of nutria, termites, malaria-bearing mosquitoes, rabies-infected dogs and the infamous Man-Bear-Pig.
Back in reality though, Olbermann’s accusation that Brown is irresponsible is because he once swore in front of some high school students. Apparently, Olbermann failed to notice that he was using an explicit, sexual reference in his diatribe. Olbermann also swears on his show, while consistently bragging about how well his program does in the younger demographic (I should note that I make no claim of being ‘responsible’ myself). The accusation that Brown is in favor of violence against women—even though Brown has two young daughters—is because he said, “We can do this” after a guy at one of his rallies yelled out, “We should shove a curling iron up Martha Coakley’s butt!” Okay Keith, aside from the fact that shoving a curling iron up someone’s butt is not really something “we can do,” it’s quite obvious that Scott Brown didn’t hear the man. And does Olbermann really expect Brown to disavow every crazy thing one of his supporters says? I mean honestly, have you ever heard what people say about politicians? Of course, Glenn Beck is no opponent of baseless name-calling and random conjecture. From claiming he couldn’t “debunk” the theory of FEMA death camps to an assortment of other, often contradictory, conspiracy theories, Glenn Beck is all about name-calling and conjecture. (8) Perhaps the most infamous was his accusation that Barack Obama has a “…a deep seated hatred for white people.” One minute and 22 seconds later he recanted, saying “I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people” after he was challenged by the fact that some 70% of Obama’s administration is white. Unfortunately, for consistency’s sake, five seconds later he then said again Obama is “..I think, a racist.” (9) At least Beck was able to avoid crying this time. But baseless name-calling is secondary to outright lying. And while both are extremely biased, I have never seen Beck, nor anyone else for that matter, do what Olbermann did regarding the so-called “climategate.” Olbermann accused the show Fox and Friends of taking a clip from Jon Stewart out of context, which Olbermann himself took out of context. Honestly, I’ve seen people take others out of context, but never have I seen someone take something out of context, while accusing others of doing so. Fox and Friends showed the first bit of a Jon Stewart segment where he jokingly says global warming is completely debunked. Then Keith Olbermann showed a little more where Jon Stewart said the leaked emails weren’t a big deal, it was just scientists talking casually. But Olbermann conveniently left out the next part, where Jon Stewart goes over a handful of the more outrageous emails. While Stewart does say the emails don’t debunks global warming, he does conclude the following about the emails: “[The scientist] was just using a trick to hide the decline. [It’s] just scientist speak for using a standard statistical technique to recalibrate data to trick you and hide the decline.
Here’s Stewart’s bit and here’s Olbermann’s hack job of it.
But at least Olbermann doesn’t abuse his guests. Nothing he’s done can compare to Beck losing his mind at a caller about healthcare. Again, the written word can do no justice here. You must see it:
While that is quite damning to those who would argue Glenn Beck is actually sane, it does tell us something good about him; namely, that he is willing to at least talk (if you can call it that) to people who disagree with him. I think the problem with Beck is that his frontal lobe inhibitors aren’t functioning properly and thus he pretty much says whatever comes to mind in all of its driftless, tear-soaked, conspiratorial, stream-of-conscious, douche-baggishness. But he does debate people. I even have video evidence of Beck debating people, for example here.
I cannot say the same for Keith Olbermann. Sure, when he’s challenged, he’ll use his television show to launch a string of invective at whoever dared speak ill of him, albeit usually in the way befitting the most douche-baggish of douchebags. For example, when Ann Coulter pointed out that Olbermann didn’t graduate from the Ivy League Cornell University, but an affiliated university, Keith Olbermann decided it was a good idea to bring out his framed diploma to show his audience (I kid you not) in an attempt to prove that he did, in fact, graduate from the university that Coulter accused him of graduating from. (10)
But that doesn’t count for actual debate. It is truly a brave form of cowardice to have a “worst person in the world” segment every show without ever having anyone on who would disagree with him on anything. It’s actually quite funny to watch when someone who basically agrees with Olbermann on everything says something that may, in some way, kind of contradict his line of thinking. Take this clip, where Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean explains why it’s out of line for Republicans to call the president a fascist, even though Olbermann had called George Bush just that many times before. Of course, Olbermann sounded more dignified by calling the president a fascist in between random quotes from Bertrand Russell and Oliver Cromwell.
In the end, the willingness to debate is what makes the difference. Glenn Beck may ramble on, between sobs, about inane connections he’s written on his wholly-unnecessary chalk board, but he’s willing to talk to people he disagrees with. He’s even changed his mind on several issues, such as marijuana legalization. (11) Olbermann instead hides behind his television show to launch hypocritical and illogical vitriol at those he refuses to give a chance to respond. And for that, Keith Olbermann is victorious. Congratulations Keith, you are the biggest douchebag on the planet.
_________________________________________________________________ For more on Glenn Beck, see South Park’s parody. And for Keith Olbermann see Saturday Night Live’s Take on him . _________________________________________________________________ (1) “ ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ for Monday, August 3, August 3, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32284299/ (2) Ibid (3) For Beck’s segment see “Glenn Beck: Cars.gov allows government to takeover your computer,” uploaded July 31, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWs12ccbOiE and for what it actually means see Hugh D’Andrade, “Cars.gov Terms of Service: What Glenn Beck Gets Right and Wrong,” August 3, 2009, http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/08/cars-gov-terms-service (4) “Beck: Iraq “was always about getting to Iran” & WMD’s bonus,” uploaded April 5, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUbBbGVF6Q8 (5) For a good, albeit rather old, rundown of Iran winning by the Iraq War is Juan Cole, “The Iraq war is over, and the winner is… Iran,” Salon Magazine, July21, 2005, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/21/iran (6) See “Beck Wants You to Look Deep Into His Eyes,” Uploaded February 4, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex695VSHmSs (7) “Olbermann’s “Apology” To Scott Brown,” Uploaded January 19, 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydNY-9xNzB0&feature=related (8) “Glenn Beck’s FEMA Backflip,” Uploaded April 4, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izjfdfDHjWQ (9) “Glenn Beck: Obama is a RACIST! Hates White Folks!,” Uploaded July 28, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ndc2LX2u98&feature=related (10) For Coulter’s article, see Ann Coulter, “Olbermann’s Platic Ivy,” Townhall.com, March 4, 2009, http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/03/04/olbermanns_plastic_ivyand for Olbermann’s bit “defending himself” and the subsequent lampooning on Fox’s Red Eye, see “Olbermann is So Insecure, I Pity Him,” Uploaded March 7, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5qgQ_71M2c (11) “Glenn Beck Legalize Marijuana & Stop The Violence,” Uploaded March 3, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFmtirw5io8 My new article for American Thinker is up. The article takes on Don Lemon, the ADL and many on the Left's contention that conservatives and particularly those evil, toxic white men are the biggest terrorists. As Don Lemon so contradictory put it, “So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them.” Good Lord Don... Good Lord...
Anyways, the article takes on Don's contention and an ADL study showing that Right-Wing extremists made up 74% of domestic terrorist killings between 2007 and 2016. This means that Right-Wing extremists is the biggest problem. Aside by the problem that the ADL only counted 372 people killed, which is a very small number. But they also don't appear to know what "per capita" means. There are a bunch of other problems with this study and the idea that extremism exists only on the Right. (Think about Antifa, James Hodgkinson and the Dallas shooting of five police officers.) That being said, the comment section seemed to prove, once again, that polarization is increasing rapidly in this country. Alt Right extremist types are from the Left because they believe in big government. (In some ways, this is true, in others, not so much.) Many were upset that my balanced approach wasn't more along the lines of "actually, all of the extremism is on the Left!" Not that the Left is any better, of course. In fact, they're far worse. But things are looking bad if we want to actually heal the divide in this country. P.S. I note that "a communist" killed JFK. My original draft noted that if you believe the conspiracies on JFK, you should check the conspiracy theories for Oklahoma City out. I don't really buy either, but I will note that I'm by no means confident in the so-called "official version" for either. Anyways, check out the article here.
Another article I wrote for SwiftEconomics taking on Media Matters. And this problem is even more true today.
Few media outlets annoy me more than Media Matters. Conservatives usually accuse them of being a George Soros-backed smear organization with a pathological obsession with Fox News. On the other hand, Media Matters maintains that they’ll simply ‘quote conservatives back to themselves’ to show how absurd/racist/sexist/evil conservatives are. Sometimes conservatives are right. I have no love for Glenn Beck, but Media Matters ran a complete smear job on him back during the whole ACORN scandal. Basically, the undercover video shows some lady talking about killing her husband. Media Matters notes that her husband is alive and well. They conveniently cut out the clip where Glenn Beck notes they hadn’t yet been able to figure that out yet. I’m sure that cut was just an accident. The partisan critique is obvious, they certainly didn’t criticize Rachel Maddow for citing a blatantly satirical site saying Christians should urge Palin to push for an invasion of Egypt. And while they criticize Glenn Beck for calling Obama a fascist, they were mum when Keith Olbermann called Bush a fascist. Neither seems to have gotten the memo that, as George Orwell noted back in 1946, “The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.'” But there’s another, more serious problem with how they typically operate. This came to mind after re-watching Noam Chomsky’s film Manufacturing Consent. Noam Chomsky is a famous leftist, but I find him to usually be a clear thinker (on everything but economics) and worth listening to. Here’s a clip where he talks about concision:
Chomsky’s basic argument is that unconventional thoughts require more evidence and thereby more time to flesh out. But you can’t do this with concision. After all, it used to be conventional wisdom that slavery was just dandy or in some places, that Bolshevism wasn’t such a bad idea.
Now I admit, I’m guilty of this as well. So are many other conservative, liberal and libertarian groups. But no one seems to have mastered it to the degree Media Matters has. And to one degree or another, what choice do you have if you’re going to be criticizing the media (although you could still be nonpartisan or consistently honest). But it’s a problem worth fleshing out. Especially given how often the likes of Keith Olbermann, The Young Turks and Ed Shultz still take little clips, usually from Media Matters, and replay them to take some quick shot at conservatives or libertarians. So Media Matters will take a short clip where someone says something that goes against conventional wisdom, then have some group that disagrees with said person refute it. For example, they posted this video under the scare line “Fox’s Andrew Napolitano: Obama Is ‘Wielding His Executive Power Like ‘A King." Even the guest states this isn’t new to Obama (some credit is due for not cutting that). But Napolitano was making the same criticisms of Bush and Media Matters didn’t criticize him then. In fact, Noam Chomsky was making similar arguments. As was Keith Olbermann (whom Media Matters loves). In fact, as was Media Matters. Yet it just sounds so radical when he’s only given two minutes to flesh out his argument. Or here’s a more blatant example: Media Matters criticized the Heritage Foundation for a project they had on over-criminalization. One part listed proposed laws that on “tackling child sex slavery, child sex trafficking, child pornography and violence against children.” Actually, that part of Heritage’s website was just naming pending legislation with no opinion given. Furthermore, what if a law sounds really nice, say like the Patriot Act. Does that mean it’s a good law? What if this law against child porn actually meant that anyone found with it on their browser’s cache would receive 20 years in prison even if they went to that site accidentally or had gotten a virus on their computer. A law’s name has nothing to do with how good or bad that law is. Overall, I think the problem is simply that Media Matters doesn’t want to play fair. They don’t want to flesh out the other side’s argument or argue a certain point of their own. Quick clips, no debate, no response. They simply want to make their opponents look stupid by constraining them with concission, whether it be in context or out of it. It takes as much time to explain many of Chomsky’s assertions in the above video as it does to explain arguments about how president’s are becoming more king-like or why welfare institutionizes poverty or whatever. Many left and right-wing arguments go completely against common wisdom, so both can be subject to the “propaganda model” Chomsky refers to. Of course, Media Matters isn’t the only example of this. As Chomsky noted, much of the U.S. media does this and many other “media watchdog sites” do as well, be it on the right or left. Media Mattersis simply the most obvious example. Furthermore, I should note that John Stossel, whom they love to criticize, gives long interviews with plenty of the debate on hour long programs dedicated to a single subject… very little concission there. Well done, John. Photo Credit: Soda Head and The Hindu |
Andrew Syrios"Every day is a new life to the wise man." Archives
November 2022
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