|
|
|
|
 |
Daily Speculations The Web Site of Victor Niederhoffer & Laurel Kenner Dedicated to the scientific method, free markets, deflating ballyhoo, creating value, and laughter; a forum for us to use our meager abilities to make the world of specinvestments a better place. |
Write to us at:
(address is not clickable)
3/31/2004
Give Me a Break by John Stossel
Reviewed by Laurel Kenner
As a pioneering consumer reporter, for 15 years John Stossel aired a thousand stories on scams, product dangers and frauds. His work prompted government investigations, led to the creation of consumer protection departments and (not so coincidentally) earned him numerous broadcast reporting awards. But then something curious happened: As he writes in "Give Me a Break" (HarperCollins, 2004), "the more I watched the regulators work, the more it seemed the real beneficiaries of the regulations were entrenched businesses, unions, and the regulators themselves."
Stossel's tale of his subsequent transformation to skeptic of liberalism and media pariah may not change many minds in the media. He is co-anchor of the 20/20 show on ABC, long disdained by leftist reporters as a right-wing bastion. If Stossel's brand of grassroots reporting led him to arrive at ideas generally accepted by modern economists, the vast herd of reporters are little more than ministers of propaganda or secretaries who write down quotes from politicians, regulators, "experts," "victims" and advocates. Such reporters are far less likely to come into contact with real people trying to run real businesses, and therefore less likely to develop a susceptibility to economic insights. That Stossel is labeled as a journalistic curiosity, even a pariah, testifies to the amazing economic illiteracy prevailing in newsrooms.
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz once wrote a lengthy feature about Stossel entitled "The Jaded Crusader," quoting Sidney Wolfe of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen group calling Stossel "a menace." The example of hate mail reprinted in the book is appalling. These attempts to demonize Stossel would almost be funny if the ideas of his critics -- that all risk is intolerable, that corporations are evil, that consumers need more government protection -- were not still so much the media's unconscious bias. The fog is thick and good reporting is scarce; today's conditions could easily lead to dangerous times.
Stossel confesses his own role in contributing to the hysteria over risk and profits: "For most of my career, I was part of the problem. I reported on statistically insignificant threats -- poisonous lawn chemicals, exploding coffeemakers. Crusading lawyers and environmental activists got me to do stories frightening people about secondhand smoke and suggesting that Hartz Mountain flea collars were killing kittens and puppies. I took the "safety" lawyers and environmentalists at their word. They were the good guys out to serve the public. By contrast, business was run by men in suits who would do just about anything to get rich. It took me too long to realize that the activists have selfish agendas, too."
"If you leave people alone, they will, without planning or intervention, create the system that benefits everyone most," Stossel writes. "This is because in a free market, every exchange is voluntary. You're always trading something you have for something you want more. It's a win-win proposition. Otherwise, why would anyone trade?
A revolutionary idea -- 200 years ago, when Adam Smith wrote it. In 21st-century America, it's news.