For better and worse, conferencing is becoming a big part of the media landscape. We do a mini-version, too.
The New York Times’s Dealbook is pulling together a whopper on Wednesday, attracting one more the more star-studded casts I’ve seen for its post-election “Opportunities for Tomorrow” conference on Wednesday. The cast includes some of the most notable names in finance, economics, and business: Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Stephen Schwarzman, Ray Dalio, Marc Andreesen, Columbia’s Glenn Hubbard and, on the other side of the spectrum, Paul Krugman (the latter two will not be paired on the same panel, if you’re wondering), Twitter’s Dick Costolo, and several others, including Arthur Sulzberger, and some of the Times’ top columnists and editors.
On the one hand, congratulations are in order. No doubt it will be worth tuning in to the livestream from Times HQ. You never know what you may learn.
Still, it’s worth noting these events involve, let’s say, a significantly enhanced degree of collaboration, beyond the normal journalism give-and-take, between news organizations and the powerful people and institutions that they cover. Pam Martens offered a biting take on the proceeding, calling it an “unseemly marriage of the plundering herd on Wall Street and the so-called paper of record assigned with the arduous task of delivering unbiased investigative reports to the public.”
This is part of the new media world. For many reasons, it will be well worth watching.
—Meanwhile, the parade of legal settlements of illegal activities in the financial sector continues, today with HSBC reportedly settling money laundering allegations that it it “transferred billions of dollars on behalf of sanctioned nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels.” The deal, with the Manhattan district attorney and Justice, includes penalties of $1.9 billion. Dealbook calls the deal a “major victory” for the government, but, let’s just say, these things are relative.
—Gawker deserves many kudos for its “Unemployment Stories” series, which lets people just write about the experience of being without a job or just scrapping by with jobs that don’t pay enough. It’s just a good, simple idea, and the perfect use of the Web’s limitless space. Yes it’s anxiety provoking to read, but also just interesting to learn (from articulate people) what they’re going through and how material issues begin to consume the whole person. Here’s a bit from Vol. 19, “This shit is real and humbling.”
But the material losses weren’t the hardest. In less than ten months I experienced the complete eradication of everything I’d worked for in my career, along with my confidence, my dignity, my identity, my optimism, and any hope I had for the future. I started tanking my (elusive) job interviews. The pressure of knowing the opinion of a perfect stranger was the deciding factor in whether or not my life improves dramatically or just keeps careening off the rails began to manifest as overly self-deprecating humor and compulsive joke telling. I used to be great at interviews, confident and easygoing, suddenly I’m Rodney Dangerfield. Except I wasn’t funny. I was raw and desperate and completely gutted, and now I can add makes other people feel uncomfortable to a growing list of unemployment side-effects.
I wish there were names attached, but the candor of these anonymous stories helps make up for it. The fact is, un-and under-employment is the biggest economic story of our time, but those stories are just hard to do.
—The old adage used to be “never get into a fight with someone who buys paper by the ton and ink by the barrel.” Well, now everyone has lots of paper and ink, so the practice of doing a harsh profile becomes a bit more complicated. This is something buzzfeed’s Jack Stuef learned when he went after Matthew Inman’s cartoon site, the Oatmeal. The response is the blogging version of shock and awe.
That Oatmeal vs Shrute bit was brutal. It was like watching a page view version of this:
http://youtu.be/8Sm1pFgwXXM
(Language NSFW)
Poor Jack. Don't go diving into the deep ocean with a small snorkel, dude. Your equipment was good enough for the Georgetown kiddie pool, but man whatever you're doing now - it ain't swimming.
Brutal.
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 11 Dec 2012 at 02:24 AM
Seriously, no one else is going to say it?
Oookay,
"“Opportunities for Tomorrow” conference on Wednesday. The cast includes some of the most notable names in finance, economics, and business: Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, Stephen Schwarzman,..., Marc Andreesen, Columbia’s Glenn Hubbard"
When these guys get together to discuss future opportunities, I keep a ready close eye on my wallet. Every single one one these guys is a grifter in their own way, from hedge fund guy who throws himself 3 million dollar birthday parties (which you could have read about in
People magazine'sdealbook's coverage) and treats attempts to tax his precious carried interest as if it's the march of the Wehrmacht, to Glen Hubbard who - as I wrote about here - is a stinking mercenary.Marc Andreesen was covered pretty good by Felix Salmon, "While Andreessen is very good at making money, then, he’s much less good at creating lasting value for the long-term shareholders of his companies. In his world, buy-and-hold public shareholders are the patsies, the people left holding the bag when the fast money has long since departed. He’s smart; the rest of us are chumps."
Which pretty much describes Blankfein's and Dimon's approach to love and finance.
And on the other side you've got Krugman? Just Krugman? (What about Jared Bernstein, Dave Leonhardt, Charles Duhigg, Joe Noecera? Aren't they part of the panels? They can hit a ball when called upon, I hope)
It'd be nice to have a Bill Black or Jamey Galbraith on the panel, hey a CEO not out of finance like James Sinegal would be a treat, but it's not just Krugman against the world I hope.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 11 Dec 2012 at 03:02 PM
The things to remember when talking about the non-Krugman side of the spectrum? Because they will come up:
They have selective vision about what's important.
And they have a fundamental fault in their model on how the world works.
Their vision of opportunity is not ours.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 11 Dec 2012 at 03:23 PM
And, as I mentioned, their vision is flawed. (Hiya Mr. Leonhardt!)
So let's take a closer look at our vision. We, on the Krugman side of the spectrum, at least have a pretty good record of being right about stuff.
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 11 Dec 2012 at 03:29 PM
Well if it is Krugman vs the world, and this is a prelude:
"Now, they don’t tell us everyone they talked to; but I think we can safely assume that, with few exceptions, the insiders in question:
- Believed that financial deregulation was a great idea, because bankers had really learned to manage risk
- Did not believe that there was a housing bubble
- Insisted that budget deficits, even in a depressed economy, would send interest rates soaring any day now
- Insisted that austerity measures would promote recovery, not hurt it, because of the confidence fairy
And on and on...
The whole theme of the Politico piece is that great things would happen if only the insiders could override all this messy democracy stuff. But the real lesson is that those insiders are not only self-dealing, but profoundly ignorant and wrong-headed. It’s too bad that so many journalists still can’t see that."
Should be an interesting show.
Ps folks who are interested should look up Jared Diamond or Chrystia Freedland and see what they have to say about elites.
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 12 Dec 2012 at 01:45 PM
And journalists should keep in mind a crucial difference that Freeland brings up in her piece:
"Businessmen like to style themselves as the defenders of the free market economy, but as Luigi Zingales, an economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, argued, “Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition.”"
This was something Krugman addressed here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/opinion/23krugman.html
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 12 Dec 2012 at 01:59 PM