The Policy Debate vs The Policy Horse Race

I've posted on this problem a number of times.  This is a great example of how its hard to get real news to voters. We have to do something about improving the quality of the debate as voters are going into the voting booth poorly informed about whats going on.  Talking heads on tv and radio want to make money so the spin spin spin with lies and half truths.

 

We have to improve access to quality information...

 

Robert Waldmann:

I googled “Warner” “derivative”

 

Some articles quote Warner, so it is clear that he is talking about spinning off derivatives trading desks. They don’t mention the fact that there are other, more important, aspects of derivative-trading reform in the Senate bill.

 

 

Some don’t specify exactly what change Warner predicts and, if taken literally, falsely assert that he predicts removal of all the derivative trading reforms in the bill reported out of the Senate Agriculture committee

 

“Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) appearing today MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell let the cat out of the bag that Sen. Lincoln’s derivative language will be striped [sic] out in the conference committee.”

 

This link sends me back to the one above

 

 

Hmm this is interesting. A very large fraction of the top relevant google hits in Warner and derivatives trading contain the same exageration and the same typo “in tact” for “intact.”

 

This post has a good summary but includes the typo. It might be the source

 

here is a search for “warner” “derivative” “in tact”

 

how about “warner” “senate” “derivative” “in tact”

 

The errors propogated over the internet. Both the typo and the important exageration. Many of the sites which copied from the Tolbert report, explicitly cite the Tolbert report so I am not accusing them of plagiary, just cut and paste journalism from a secondary source.

I also did “warner” “senate” “derivative” “intact”

 

This mostly sends me to an independent trove of exageration in which “derivative-reform” becomes “spinning of derivative trading desks” and nothing else. Much of the distortion is at firedoglake.com, where they are campaigning hard against Lincoln and much inclined to claim that her derivative-reform will amount to nothing, because it will amount only to exchange trading and clearning requirements. I had considered titling this post “firedog feaver” as I think they excell at ignoring important policy issues to focus on their disagreements with conservadems. If conservadems are for it, it doesn’t exist over there.

 

The distorted descussion of derivative-reform is similar to the way there was more discussion of the cornhusker kickback allowing Nebraska to not pay part of the cost of medicaid expansion than of medicaid expansion itself. Quick pop quiz: How many more people will get medicaid due to health care reform (HCR) ? Who are they ? That is, who has family income below four thirds of the poverty line but no medicaid ? Where are they ? Is the geographic distribution similar to the distribution of people with income under four thirds of the poverty line ? These are important questions. One can’t have an informed opinion of HCR without answering them. They were discussed almost not at all, because there was no doubt that medicaid expansion would be part of the final bill.

 

The fate of medicaid expansion was not news. Also it was not a way to see who won the struggle between progressives and blue dog conservadems. So it only matters to the 16 million people who will get health insurance as a result.

Here are some ideas on New Strategies for Supporting Public and Noncommercial Media.

 

Posted via email from Jim Nichols