Monthly Archives: October 2008

Greenberg’s Law of the Media

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Greenberg’s Law of the Media states that “if a news item has a number in it, then it is probably misleading.”

The law is best understood by seeing examples of it in practice.

To this end, I am going to start posting examples that I find.  I have also created a category on this blog so that you can easily find the examples.

Follow this link to the first example from the Washington Post web site. The following paragraph from the article is the example:

From shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks to last year, U.S. defense spending rose from 3 to 4 percent of gross domestic product, but it remains far below the 45-year average of 5.5 percent. The Pentagon’s budget for fiscal 2009 is $527 billion, a figure that does not include Iraq and Afghanistan war costs, which have totaled more than $800 billion since 2001.

Are they saying that our defense spending is less than the 45-year average when you don’t count the amount that would put it above that average? I think that is what’s known as a tautology.

This kind of accounting has become standard practice in business.  “Company XYZ made a profit when you exclude certain items.”  Those items being the ones that show the company did not make a profit.

America Has the Second-Lowest Business Taxes In the World

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Follow this link to an article and video about the claim that America has the second-lowest business taxes in the world.

I looked at the page in the  the Bush Treasury Department report the author claims “admits we have the second lowest effective corporate tax rate in the industrialized world”. It does seem to say what he claims. Of course, I am the one that came up with Greenberg’s Law of the Media, “If a news story has a number in it, it is probably misleading.” See if you can find anything that is misleading about David Sirota’s claims.

Steal Back Your Vote 1

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Follow this link to the story Block the Vote by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast

“I don’t think the Democrats get it. All these new rules and games … could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states.”

Here is the accompanying clip of the movie:



Follow this link to the the Steal Back Your Vote web site. This is where you can get the items mentioned at the end of the above video.

U.S. policies may have contributed to Iran revolution, study says

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Follow this link to the story U.S. policies may have contributed to Iran revolution, study says by Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer.

The purported facts are worthwhile to know. Who to blame if indeed blame is warranted is hard to know. I don’t know if there are good guys and bad guys in this story.  Perhaps there are only bad guys and worse guys.

Barney Frank On The Housing Situation

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Follow this link to the 27 minute video of  Washington Journal on C-SPAN Thursday, July 24, 2008.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Financial Services Committee Chairman talks about the stability of and changes in the domestic and international markets as more and more assets are held outside the traditional banking system. He also discusses the passage of the housing bill by the House.

There is a lot to learn in this video including some thoughts on good investments and bad.

I stumbled across this video trying to do some research to respond to a comment on the Worcester T & G website about Barney Frank’s statement that Freddie Mac and Frannie Mae were sound.  Perhaps he should not have said this, but it may be  that at the time he said this it was true. The situation deteriorated in ways that could not have been foreseen at that point.

My post on this blog titled Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis tries to address the complexity of both sides of the issue.

Colin Powell Endorses Obama 1

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It is not only the fact of the endorsement, but it is also the way in which the endorsement was made.

I still do not like the way Colin Powell handled the Iraq War presentation to the UN. However, even if you want to completely discredit the man, what he said in the above two videos bears repeating over and over. Follow this link to see Huffington Post’s article and reader reaction to the endorsement.

Sarah Palin on SNL

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I hate to steal the thunder from my previous post on David Plouffe, but this is too good to pass up.

Follow this link to the videos of the real Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. Huffington Post has been good enough to present links to two skits that Sarah Palin did on SNL.

If you don’t want to go to Huffington Post for some reason, here are the two skits: