The Media Meddling in Financial Matters

               

I commented recently how the financial media does a poor job of commenting on financial matters, scapegoating big business and Wall Street, repeating populist political comments.

                   

One good example would be the subject of repos. The elimination of repos sales off the books of Lehman Brothers had relatively little to do with the use of bank guarantees by the government. Imposed bank accounting, and not repos, were the villains in the financial meltdown of 2008/2009.

                       

Some in the financial media, as well as the administration have ignorantly treated each financial institution problem as part of a group, to be treated alike, by similar regulatory treatment.

                       

Every entity that has been in trouble in the past was  tossed in the same basket; AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, and so on. Each had its own peculiar problems and could have been rescued in its own way, without heavy-handed government assistance.

                       

The media has done a poor job of sorting this out for the average citizen to understand. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)