Apologies for the outnumbering, but I would like to revise and extend as well...
Bigdog put a number of arguments back against my original point. The first is perfectly valid - there are many stories that don't get covered. Second, the UK tax increase point is not as clear as Doug says it is, the richest person in the UK did not leave for example. Third would be defects in the coverage of others, such as Fox News.
The Foreign Policy piece is interesting, though they are one more outlet that missed the UK-no-new-revenues-from-taxing-the-rich story, even while they write about missed stories. Tax policy isn't foreign policy directly, but the foundation of a successful foreign policy is economic health and strength at home IMO. Our deficit, our recession/stagnation, our growing culture of dependency and non-productiveness, and our policies at home that result in an anti-business climate yielding a record low rate of new business startups undermine our foreign policy capabilities and influence.
They put forward 10 interesting stories, all of the type that make reading the forum worthwhile; you don't learn these things most other places: 1) Trade between India and Pakistan, 2) Brazil Immigration, 3) Inuit prosperity, 4) Guinea worm disease eradicated, 5) 3D copyrights, 6) Call Centers moving from India to Philippines, 7) Hong Kong - China tensions, 8.)Cyoress-Moscow ties, 9) Oil in Central Africa, 10) Abu Musa islands dispute.
There is no reason to trivialize any of these. The analogy though to me would be if a newspaper like the NY Times, LA Times, or Washington Post were writing and placing stories on the front page day after day about Guinea worm disease, and it was crucial to the survival of our country, but they had neglected to tell us it was cured. The publications are covering the tax increase on the rich story incessantly, but they are not telling us crucial details such as that when it was tried in the UK just one year ago it brought in NO NEW REVENUE.
The J.K. Rowling argument, micro vs. macro, to me is like refuting global warming by pointing out one cold day in Minneapolis. J.K. Rowling may have a host of personal reasons to stay or she may have moved her investments out of the U.K. for all we know. The story says that 6000 people still reported income over a million GBP, not that everyone left or has the ability to leave. This is not a story a wealth tax, where she leads Great Britain; it is a story about an income tax rate that yielded no new revenue. I don't think she released a major title during that year. My income from selling or renting MN properties does not leave the state if I leave; maybe her copyrights are parked in the UK, or maybe the bulk of her income has already left. No facts advanced but a nice shiny object! I know nothing about the inner workings of U.K. tax laws. Her business is rather unique. She employs very few people relative to her income, compared to other gazillionaires. I also would doubt that the majority of her books are printed in the U.K.
More important is that 10,000 million-pound incomes disappeared. That doesn't mean the people left; it means those income levels are gone. In a growing economy (and the only way to grow revenues is to grow the economy), that number should have gone up at least a few thousand, not to have the majority of them disappear. It is a HUGE story.
We can argue the merits further on tax issues, but the falsehood is static scoring. President Obama keeps quoting numbers that don't include the FACT that people change their behavior based on changing policies, incentives and disincentives. The Media Issue I introduced is that the media that we consider mainstream will not cover it.
The last time (only time?) I saw an mainstream co-conspirator question liberal-Democratic failed economic theories was one Charlie Gibson asked of candidate Barack Obama back in April of 2008:
GIBSON: You have...said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent.
But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent.
OBAMA: Right.
GIBSON: And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down.
So why raise it at all...?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/DemocraticDebate/Story?id=4670271&page=3#.UMEts1KIiqk----------------
Or try this, has the front page news section of a major publication mentioned ever reported that revenues to the Treasury doubled in the 1980s, from $517 Billion to $1032 Billion while the top rate went from 70% to 28%, or that revenues surged 44% in 4 years from $1.78 Trillion in 2003 to $2.57 Trillion in 2007 under the Bush tax rate cuts now in question. Tax rate cuts did not cause the deficits, did they ever put forward facts to correct the quotes of people claiming they did. If not, why not? They just didn't get to it - like Brazilian immigration or Guinea worm disease? I don't buy it. They were on the topic and omitted the key points. The reason I put forward is mediocrity, bias, agenda and fact hiding.
I don't watch Fox News except one Sunday show they put on broadcast television. Many here find Hannity to be a blowhard. Shows like that admit they are opinion more than news. No doubt Fox misses a lot of stories; maybe their misses show their bias. I heard they cut back Rove and Morris for being idiots and zealots on election night. A good sign. Fox radio news to me is written with similar liberal bias as the other networks. They miss most stories and repeat the same take on the same lead stories hour after hour.
I believe Foreign Policy has this wrong, (while we are at it):
The U.S. measures oil reserves differently than every other country. The SEC regulates the use of the term. We have much, much more oil than the data from this chart shows.
Kate Middleton... Just goes to show how stories are mostly market driven to whatever draws people in. The analogy I think would be if you covered her every move day after day after day after day, then learned public knowledge she was pregnant and DIDN'T cover it.
On tax policy they hide the facts, poll on what people learned from distorted coverage, and make the poll result the story. 57% say they want ta hikes on the rich? Did they preface the poll question with the fact that tax rate hikes don't bring in more revenue as just shown in a nearly identical example in one of the most similar economies to the U.S. in the world? No. Not with a story, not in the question.
If so-called mainstream media had balance their market size would potentially double (to include conservatives) but the agenda would fail. The number one cable news network by far competitor Fox might never have gotten off the ground if political balance was already achieved. The WSJ is by far number one in the nation with a third more subscribers than the NY Times and more than 4 times the circulation of the Washington Post. Coincidentally their editorial views are the opposite of most of the rest and fill a conspicuous void in the market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States_by_circulation
