(This space will be filled periodically with musings about life on Kandahar Airfield as well as rants and raves about media, writing and other stuff.)
Financial Pundits Need to Get Real
If you’re old enough to remember black-and-white TV and Edsels, you’re no doubt getting a lot of heartburn from the markets.
And you’re not getting much relief from the financial journalists on cable TV news. I’m going to pick on CNN’s Ali Velshi, who’s admired by his colleagues and conveys more than a passing understanding of economics and finance.
He’s just one of many pundits who were quick to urge viewers with 401(k) accounts to stay the course in the stock market. They rolled out all the statistics showing how the markets have rebounded and actually prospered after previous slumps, including the 2008 meltdown. Reason enough, they said, to stick with reliable stocks in your retirement account and ride out the storm.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/08/04/exp.nr.401k.grim.outlook.cnn
That’s fine if you’ve got a decade or two to recoup your losses. But what if your countdown to retirement is measured in months instead of years? Millions of boomers (I’m one) don’t have time to wait for their accounts to revive before they cross the great divide into the land of social security, Medicare and investment income.
When Wall Street tanked after the debt limit debacle, I didn’t want to hear about restraint and patience. Like a lot of folks my age, I’ve had my 401(k) hammered by a string of recessions in just over a decade. I’m about to need every penny to augment social security, and I can’t sit back and hope the markets will resuscitate my accounts before I draw on them for financial survival.
Televised financial advice should not be presented as one-size-fits-all. Just like the weather, it should be segmented to reflect a variety of conditions. Divide the actuarial tables into logical chunks, and give each group advice tailored to their differing circumstances and needs.
Not enough air time? Yeah, right. It’s 24-hour news, and look what they show us now.
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Keep ‘Em Honest with “Debt Desks”
Media outlets have clogged themselves with reports, commentaries, analyses and humbug following the debt ceiling vote and the bewildering budget flimflam that was attached to it.
Cynics are right to predict that in 10 years, much of the verbiage in the final compromise will have turned out to be fiction. But we shouldn’t have to wait that long to find out.
Every serious news organization should set up a “debt and spending reduction desk.” Put some good gum-shoe journalists to work tracking every line of the legislation, every promise and threat made during the ugly process leading up to it, and how the intentions match reality. Readers and audiences will get differing takes depending on the perspective of the news outlet. Nevertheless, the result will be watchdog journalism, a dying art that is still the fourth estate’s highest calling.
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Nick Charles
And finally, a belated note on the death of CNN sports pioneer Nick Charles. Others have eulogized Nick far more eloquently than I could. All I can add is that he was a star who never acted that way. He always treated me as a friend. I hope he knew how much he was admired as a professional and a person.
