Each day the business press churns out a vast amount of copy. There's probably more written about business issues than any other single subject beyond politics. This makes sense, given that advertisers are hoping to reach the most affluent among us. They're more willing to underwrite news they believe the affluent care about. What is more surprising is how limited the range of tone is in most of these opinion, news or newsy opinion pieces. A very large chunk of the business journalism out there falls into two categories. The first decries the incompetency of regulators and all of the unintended consequences their rules impose on the marketplace. The other camp are the conspiracy theorists, who take the completely opposite view. The regulators and lawmakers are so intelligent and devious that they are able to achieve ulterior goals in addition to the ostensible purpose of legislation. I simply can't understand, in a country with such abundance, where such a dim view of human intentions and capabilities comes from. Yes, we hit a rough patch over the past several years, but take a look around. We built a highly functioning society before that.
This piece by a "local lender" in AOL's Patch assumes that the Dodd-Frank's requirements that banks get verification of a borrowers income means that Congress is surreptitiously attempting to turn banks into IRS agents. Instead of saying that these rules are problematic for excluding people's whose income can't easily be verified, he tosses out a conspiracy theory that flies in the face of all common sense.
This article in The New York Post is another example of baseless bloviating that the financial services industry engages in each day in the press. In lists platitudes about how Dodd-Frank kills lending institutions' abilityto do their job, without proving how its happening. I'm totally open to this possibility. In fact I'm sure that increased regulations will dampen lending. Of course, it's a question of how and to what it extent this occurs, and whether we're receiving compensation through decreased systematic risk. But these commentators aren't interested in studying problems and producing solutions. They're interested in condemning boogeymen and fanning people's preconceived notions of what's wrong with regulation and government.
These are just two examples, but I read similar writing every day. I try to keep an open mind and consider all positions. I feel that a journalist has a responsibility not to disinterestedness or impartiality but to keeping an open mind. However, so much writing out there takes the form of screed without evidence to back it up.
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