How Wall Street uses the business press

David Korten of Common Dreams has an interesting take on how the business news media is manipulated by Wall Street.

Korten writes, “Ever hear a business reporter on the evening business news say, ‘Today, investors drive up the price of commodities to create a hundred billion in new value,’ or some such? Sounds great, almost implying we should offer thanks to these champions of the public good who are risking their fortunes to expand the pool of wealth to enrich us all. The reporter is manipulating the language to set us up as marks in the Wall Street con.

“A more honest report might have said, ‘Today, hedge fund traders speculating with other people’s money walked away with multimillion dollar commissions for inflating the commodities bubble by a hundred billion dollars.’ In a more honest world, the report would clearly distinguish between real investors creating real wealth through real investments and speculators creating phantom wealth with financial games. People who bet on the price of pieces of paper would be called ‘gamblers.’ Those who hold the bets and distribute the winnings would be called ‘bookies.’

“Boil it down to the basics and you see that Wall Street is in the business of operating four sophisticated, large-scale confidence games.

“In a more honest world, business news would clearly distinguish between real investors creating real wealth through real investments and speculators creating phantom wealth with financial games.”

Read more here.