The Dollar Vigilante
by Jeff Berwick
Watching American TV news or reading American newspapers can be dangerous to your mental and financial health. Whatever information they proffer is usually bereft with inaccuracies, fallacies and propaganda. But, in order to understand what information the public is receiving it is important to take an hour or two per month to tune in to these propaganda dispensers, such as CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and all the rest. It is a difficult thing to do for a number of reasons. First, practically everything the talking heads say is either incorrect, a lie or something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things - an obvious diversion from the real important issues (Lindsay Lohan, seriously?) - that it is just painful to watch. And secondly, for those that are not used to imbibing this media version of raw sewage on a regular basis, the amount of flashing graphics, alerts and pace of the discussions and debates are so rapid-fire and more shouted than spoken that you can actually feel your heart start to race after watching just a few minutes of any "news" program.