SteveG, you can sense my frustration when it comes to disinformation i.e., deliberate misinformation, in economic matters. Government misuse of statistical data is another pet peeve.

As you know, as a trader, I key off these media people. Just remember GM at 35: "Go go Lebeau!"

It's all just a game, but too many of the Little People get taken in by these scam artists. So the only way I can get through to the people who matter to me is to show outrage, at times.

/Bill

DavPac,

When a very helpful blog initiative like Wikipedia has a couple bad apples, the mainstream media is all over it. But when I say that Big Media is full of bad apples who don't check facts, who deliberately deceive in order to benefit their friends and patrons -- which includes critically important financial data -- there are some readers like you who think I am being political.

Your comment is off-base. If you really think my complaint today was a political discussion, then I'm sorry that you come here.

You don't have to agree with what I write -- and many readers don't -- but don't tell me what to write, and don't use my blog to characterize my writing.

You insulted my intelligence once before with your remark (which I allowed): "Please don't make me turn you off. I have already unsubscribed from others because they feel they must get into politics."

DavPac, are you serious? "Please don't make me turn you off"? You never subscribed here in the first place. Nobody asked you to come here.

In other words, get lost, please.

Not so cordially,

/Bill

DavPac wrote to apologize, and I replied:

Dave, I get commenters all the time who I don't agree with either. But I don't tell them what to write. I give them a chance to say something. I don't want readers to see that I will only support people who share my views because that would mean I have failed. I care about integrity.

I get a steady stream of unprintable stuff (a large amount that even they would say is political) from readers who send it directly to me -- mostly third person remarks. It's all part of blogging. I don't mind at all.

But, this is not a political blog. It's also not an anti-MSM (mainstream media) blog either. Trader Magazine is MSM, and I write for them. I knock the sell-side too, but I'd venture to say about 20 pct of my readers are sell-side, and at least 30 pct of the Monitors I lined up for the new forums will be sell-side. Moreover, possibly 50 pct of my personal friends are sell-side. They understand that in this blog I'm expressing a viewpoint, and they may agree but they frequently disagree.

When I make a point I try to show people why I make the point. Today I said that MSM -- as in CNN -- has a responsibility to speak the truth -- not make up stories and pretend that it is "trusted news". I backed up my viewpoint with facts. Let people try to dispute those facts if they can. That blog had zero to do with politics -- and everything to do with how the MSM is being used as an instrument. (“Go, go LeBeau�.)

Are you aware that there are now about 35,000 registered lobbyists in Washington, more than double the number when Bush came to power? Apparently they have doubled their fees too (according to research from a polisci prof at Brigham Young). As a consequence, I think most of what MSM produces today, and politicians speak, has been researched and scripted by lobbyists. It's out of control.

If my blog could be 100-pct related to trading prices, I'd be a happier person -- but more today than at any time in my lifetime I see vested interest groups trying to manipulate others. Sometimes that's economics -- like CNN yesterday -- and sometimes it's the financial and capital markets.

But make no mistake that what you read from Dow Jones & Co or Rupert Murdoch's company, or even what college professors are writing, has been bought and paid for. True academia and journalism has been put under the control of a few people who are paying for that opportunity. That's not right because it's pulling society apart.

And as I see it, that's not politics. Politics (and MSM) in a democracy is supposed to be representative of the wishes of the majority of the population. Right? Well, politicians and Big Media today have been bought and paid for by a very few of us, which is all about economics and finance. And that is what this blog is about.

At the end of the day, I do not want this blog to be in the middle of a debate between MSM and the Blogosphere. Backed by facts, they can criticize us, and we can do the same to them. But everybody -- me included -- wants this blog to be focused on financial and capital markets.

/Bill