Look what we are doing to our women in our advertising. Jean Kilbourne explains, in an excerpt of a one-hour video titled Killing Us Softly. I own the full version and it is thought-provoking viewing--or perhaps it struck my especially hard because I am the father of two daughters, aged 10 and 12. What can we do about the unrealistic way much advertising portrays women? Step one, according to Kilbourne, is to become aware of the problem.
Most economists failed to predict the market crash of 2008--so many that it is hard to count them all. But how is this even possible? It's on a scale of this hypothetical: 98% of meteorologists failing to predict a huge hurricane hitting the coast of Florida. Consider this description of the problem:
Like everyone else, we wondered how could the world's leading economy and its top economists, including the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke - a man who is surrounded by a network of smartest investors, scientists, and think tanks - miss the financial crisis and its impact on the US Economy?
The predictive failures by economists causes a friend of mine to argue that, as a general rule, economists are not scientists at all, and that they are "frauds." In my opinion, he's overstating the point because there were some economists who clearly predicted the burst of the housing bubble, but most of the economists who take to the airwaves don't seem to be scientists like the scientists who develop vaccines or design solar panels. They are often terrible at making predictions, and their lapses can look cataclysmic in retrospect. They are like sportscasters, always looking forward to the next game, trying hard to divert attention from their previous failures. They seem more like lawyers or PR specialists than scientists. This article at Wharton suggests that the economists who failed to predict the housing bubble lack "common sense":At Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has written a terrific in-depth article on how Roger Ailes built the Fox News Fear Factory. The title is, "The Fox News Fear Factory." As part of that long article, Dickinson cites some interesting stats. The topic is "Who watches Fox News?" And here's the answer:
Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network’s viewers are old, with a median age of 65: Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, spots for products like Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical (“Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven’t had since I started using catheters”). The audience is also almost exclusively white – only 1.38 percent of viewers are African-American. “Roger understands audiences,” says Rollins, the former Reagan consultant. “He knew how to target, which is what Fox News is all about.” The typical viewer of Hannity, to take the most stark example, is a pro-business (86 percent), Christian conservative (78 percent), Tea Party-backer (75 percent) with no college degree (66 percent), who is over age 50 (65 percent), supports the NRA (73 percent), doesn’t back gay rights (78 percent) and thinks government “does too much” (84 percent). “He’s got a niche audience and he’s programmed to it beautifully,” says a former News Corp. colleague. “He feeds them exactly what they want to hear.”Dickenson's conclusions is also astounding. Not too many years ago, conservative politicians believed that Fox News was a tool of the conservative politicians. That might have flipped. Now it appears that the conservative politicians are tools of Fox News. Democracy in action, some would say.
I spotted this article on Reddit.com today. The little Vietnamese girl who was photographed running, terrified, naked and burned from the napalm attack recovered, grew up to become a doctor and is now living in Canada. She has lived quite an interesting life.
To put this topic in perspective, think of the terrible old banker, Mr. Potter, featured in the Christmas classic, "It’s a Wonderful Life." Mr. Potter drove a very hard bargain, but he wanted customers to actually pay off their loans. Keep in mind that Mr. Potter was lending out money at about 2%. If Mr. Potter could have charge as much as many credit card companies, he would want to stretch out his repayment plans. And if he could charge 500%, he might not actually ever want his loans to be repaid. Welcome to the world of payday lending. During the day I work as a consumer lawyer at the Simon Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri. My firm has filed several class actions again payday lenders based on their outrageous lending practices--on many occasions they systematically ignore the weak state laws that ostensibly regulate their conduct. At my firm, we've met undeniable facts demonstrating that payday lenders make most of their money from people they would term "repeat customers," but these people should more accurately be referred to as people who are trapped in high interest loans or 400% or even 500% interest.