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Mix-Ansicht- Brainwashing ; oder wieder mal tüchtig abschalten! Stop this B.S. - Emerald, 12.08.2004, 03:00
Brainwashing ; oder wieder mal tüchtig abschalten! Stop this B.S.
-->The Manchurian Investor
Warning: Wall Street is secretly brainwashing you
By Paul B. Farrell, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 8:16 PM ET Aug. 10, 2004
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Ever wonder why you feel like you're addicted to financial news, like you need a fix if you don't catch the latest market-moving hot-breaking news tip?
Ever get super-anxious, like you're detoxing when you go more than a few hours without checking CNBC, Fox or MarketWatch, or reading The Journal, Kiplinger's or Money?
You're now"The Manchurian Investor!"
You're being brainwashed by what BusinessWeek calls the"Wall Street Hype Machine," a powerful cartel that spends $15 billion a year trying to turn you into a robotic junkie addicted to the business news... which is indirectly controlled by America's big ad spenders in the financial industry.
Warning: If you're still buying their hype I hope you'll"wake up" soon because some respected market experts are now advising investors to go to cash, warning of an eminent collapse with the Dow testing its 2002 low around 7,500!
The Wall Street cartel (including its co-conspirators in the mutual fund, insurance and banking industries) are at work gaining absolute control of your brain by making you believe you cannot trust yourself to think independently without their advice and assistance.
Wall Street's secret brainwashing machine
So they're brainwashing you into becoming another one of the millions of Manchurian investors in America. How? Very simple: by confusing you with schizoid, double-bind messages. They tell you to think long-term about asset allocations while they are churning your funds 100 percent annually on the average.
They tell you to stay the course, be a patient, passive buy-and-hold investor. Then they spend $15 billion on advertising while at the same time making sure their high-paid guru analysts and portfolio managers get exposure as talking heads and sound-bite providers on the same networks, channels and publications they advertise on.
For example, recently Wall Street's creators of the new"Manchurian Investors" condoned a respected financial magazine publication of a great article advising an investor that his 20-fund portfolio is too big and he would be better cutting down to just eight funds. That's all, just eight funds for a well-diversified portfolio.
If you look closely at so many other issues and stories and watch the cable networks or go online for data anytime through the trading day you'll be overwhelmed with advertisements and articles recommending hundreds and hundreds of funds and stocks. Remember Wall Street and its buddies have a total of 10,000 funds and 8,000 stocks that they gotta push like Wal-Mart.
Every month you can bet a dollar to a doughnut you'll see one of the key magazines sporting a tabloid-style exploitation cover coming at you like a flashing neon sign -- over and over and over you hear about"The 25 Best Funds," or the 100 best, or 8 best, or whatever.
But the $15 billion a year Wall Street Hype Machine stays on message -- the"long-term buy-and-hold is best" message while at the same time they also push you into schizoid hell with their incessant pounding surrealistic double-bind advertisements grabbing at what few brain cells you have left.
How bad is it? If you are already a Manchurian Investor, or any other mildly active investor trying to keep up with what's happening in the world, you should be aware of why you feel the anxieties you feel. So here's my back-of-the-envelope estimate of the number of times you get exposed to hot tips and recommendations from all the major financial media:
Cable television hits you with 15,000 securities per year
Imagine watching CNBC, CNN and Fox for the annual barrage of 250 market days. Now multiply the number of ads plus"recommendations" from talking heads and hosts being thrown at you during an eight-hour day. On the conservative side at least 20 stocks and funds pop up on the screen every day for a total of at least 15,000 every year. And this fair-and-balanced onslaught doesn't include your local business channels and network television.
Daily newspapers: another 20,000 securities per year
Now consider the added barrage that comes packaged in The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, USAToday and your local newspaper. That's 250 issues a year, 50 for Barron's and 365 for your local newspaper -- loaded with another estimated 20 journalists"recommendations" and ads shouting at you for attention in just these four newspapers.
Monthly magazines: add 6,000 more securities per year
Let's assume you're a subscriber to all the good ones, BusinessWeek, Kiplinger's, Money, SmartMoney plus one other that offers financial tips. That's five magazines times 12 months with another hundred securities mentioned in each issue in the ads or articles written by journalists. That's another 6,000 hammering away at your every years.
Total securities"recommended" by media: 42,000+ per year
No wonder we're all feeling brainwashed and manipulated as The Manchurian Investors, addicted to a news overload that is far, far beyond the capacity of our brains to process. We get hit with 42,000"recommendations" for funds and advertisements each and every year... that's more than 100 every day!
And still these jokers have the audacity to tell us that 8 to 10 funds is all the diversification your portfolio will ever need!
Put these two contradictory crazy-making claims together and you get a devious form of brainwashing that makes the Manchurian Candidate look like child's play.
And since I'm on the inside of the hype machine, I guess I'm guilty of the same sin. But at least most of the time my message is limited to telling you to stick to two, or four or nine -- but no more than 11 -- funds that make up a well-diversified, long-term, buy-and-hold portfolio for the average passive investor.
I do that in hopes that what I say can sneak past your Manchurian brain and into what's left of your brain cells that are not controlled by the Hype Machine.
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