John Stossel Is A Tool

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Matt Osborne
John Stossel is happy in the Faux Noise toolbox. While skimming the article at Daily Beast I came across this passage tucked in between paeans to the prescience of Ayn Rand:
Now, before you could be a TV repairman, you had to hire a lawyer to fill out forms to send in fees. It screwed poor people, an immigrant who wanted to open a business, because he wouldn’t know how to file these things. It raised prices for everybody, or they had to live in the underground. So I was seeing that on the one hand, and on the other hand, we were doing all these scare stories, and I started to think, we put equal hype on each.

Leaving aside the way TV repair has been left behind by the relentless march of technology: Good point! Some social services agency ought to help low-income immigrants figure out the paperwork to start their own businesses. Oh, wait…

And then there’s this beautiful passage of pure Stupid™, where Stossel tries to blame the financial crisis on minority lending:
Banks pressured to lend to minorities even if they didn’t have a typical credit history, because otherwise they were discriminating. And Fannie and Freddie were saying, don’t worry, we’ll buy up all these mortgages. And tons of regulation. Bush didn’t erase any regulation, he added more regulation than any president before him. But people act as if it’s a horrible crisis, and I say that is ridiculous! Because in 1982, where was the Dow Jones average? What is it, 11000 today? Where was it in 1982? It was at 800! So in 28 years, it’s gone from 80, to 8000 and above. Had that happened steadily, we’d be saying, aren’t free markets wonderful? What a wonderful boom period! But because we had a bubble caused partly by government, the Federal Reserve making money cheap, we had a boom and it popped. I don’t think that discredits capitalism. But look, we’re prosperous in America. It’s not because of government. The people who tried government regulation have lives which are miserable.

Bush…added regulation? And the health of the entire global financial system measured by the value of the Dow Jones? There’s an enormous credibility gap even before you examine the central thesis of this idea, at which point the whole thing collapses: the subprime crisis was caused by competitive mortgage salesmen racing to the bottom. Why else would they have created NINA (No Income, No Asset) loans?

But I guess subtle racism is par for the course with a guy who bases his entire world-view on the sci-fi ravings of a cult leader. It surprises me that there isn’t more Rand-Hubbard crossover, quite frankly.




About Matt Osborne

Veteran blogging the culture wars from Alabama. Video journalist, mash-up artist, aspiring novelist, and metalhead. Expect bunnies, geekery, dark humor, and snarky empirical analysis to annoy idealists of all stripes. You can follow me on Twitter, but be ready 'cause it might get loud.
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  • Wolfe Tone

    "Toolisity" is definitely a requirement for employment as a "newsperson" with Cluster Fox.

  • Matt Osborne

    "Toolisity" sounds like a bad porn movie from the 1970s.

  • Wolfe Tone

    Heh. That occurred to me as when I decided to use it.

  • Matt Osborne

    Bad Wolfe!

  • This is Scott

    Bush . . . added regulations??
    That's the craziest fucking thing I've read all night.
    I'm trying to think of an appropriate metaphor to compartmentalize this, but I'm half-drunk and it's just too goddamn stupid to keep considering.

  • Matt Osborne

    Scott, the man lacks a basic education in the "free market" he extols. Did you see his piece on price gouging as a "natural" market force after Katrina? Unbelievable.

  • This is Scott

    Price gouging as a "natural" market force after Katrina. . . ?
    fuck me jebus.
    No, I never read that. And I don't think I need to. I know enough about the Ayn Rand types to know that the free market bullshit they preach is as much religion as the type I grew up with.
    How can any person take this sort of thing seriously? It's beyond me.

  • Anonymous

    ANY "minority" person can gain whatever he/she wishes under the current system, as long as they play by the rules. The politicians(left and right wing)know this. That means acting like a reasonably civilized, disciplined adult and not like a primitive savage that hates everything civilized. That means not acting like a dipshit. Higher education, nice home, plenty to eat, security, vacations, a job to be proud of – it doesn't matter what color you are. Been that way since the Sixties.

  • ZIRGAR

    Anonymous: Does the irony of any part of your comment escape you?

  • Matt Osborne

    Anonymous: are you seriously telling me that racism has no effect anymore?

    Please tell me that's not what you meant. I'd hate to think there could be someone that blind and ignorant capable of using the internet.

  • Anonymous

    I thought we were all adults here. Racism comes in all colors. Is it racist to make a factual statement?

  • ZIRGAR

    Matt, I love how, right in the middle of Anonymous's comment is a ridiculously racist indictment of minorities, which basically says that if they act civilized they get civilization. The implication being that minorities do in fact act uncivilized, therefore that's what's holding them back regarding their place in society. That's he irony of I was speaking. How long has the noble whitey been trying to civilize the awful savage? It's coded terminology like that that calls into question Anonymous' very assertion about equality and fairness that is color blind.

  • ZIRGAR

    Oops. I meant, " That's the irony of which I was speaking.

  • Matt Osborne

    ZIRGAR, Anonymous doesn't believe racism exists except when you pass a law against it, at which point YOU are the racist.

  • Anonymous

    Ah, life in the ivory tower! It really all comes down to what the meaning of "is" is.

  • Matt Osborne

    Anonymous:

    I know what "is" is.

    I know that waterboarding *IS* torture, that endless war on a Bank of China credit card *IS* ruinous, and that John Stossell *IS* a tool.

    I should like to know what ivory tower you are talking about, and what it has to do with the subject of the post.

  • Anonymous

    Directed at no one in particular, the "ivory tower" implies an idealistic, conceptual, well-intentioned view of the world that might just clash with the views of those who've seen the world a little too "up close and personal." What some refer to as "the street." It's like listening to old-timers talk about the Depression. Hard times. A similar metaphor would be "rose-colored glasses." All peoples, world-wide, understand the concept of Social Darwinism. Wasn't this post originally about John Stossel and the awful things he has said?