Page 518 - How to Make Money in Stocks Trilogy

Watching the Market and Reacting to News 387

provided one-sided news with little balance or fairness. This is a book all
young people in America should read to be well informed.
Goldberg tells how journalists decide what news they want to cover and
the slant they want to impart. More damaging, they determine what news to
minimize or keep quiet. They take sides and assign labels to people.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, a leading media figure, was a speechwriter for
Jimmy Carter. The late Tim Russert of NBC was a political advisor to New
York’s governor, Mario Cuomo. ABC’s Jeff Greenfield was a speechwriter for
Robert Kennedy, PBS’s Bill Moyers was Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary,
and ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos was Clinton’s communica-
tions director.
To succeed, as individual investors and a free nation, we must learn to
separate facts from the personal political opinions and strong agenda-driven
biases of the majority of the national media. This could be the number one
problem in our country today.
In addition to one-sided bias in the national media, freedom can be jeop-
ardized by either infiltration or propaganda designed to undermine the
nation and its people. This is intended to confuse national issues; pit one
group against another; stir up class envy, fear and hatred; and tear down or
demean certain key people or established institutions.
The most questionable practice of the one-sided media is how they select
which stories and facts to cover and continually promote. Even more impor-
tant are the critically relevant stories and facts they choose not to cover
because those stories or facts don’t support their agenda or the slant they
want the story to have.
In late 2008, public fear the recession then under way might become like
the Great Depression of the 1930s escalated. Most Americans weren’t even
born then and know little about the period. Here are three outstanding
books about the 1930s and early 1940s every American should read:
Since Yesterday, The 1930s in America by Frederick Allen, gives a good
account of what happened in that period. The Life & Death of Nazi
Germany, by Robert Goldston, covers Hitler and the rapid rise of the Nazis
from the late 1920s to the end of World War II. Masters of Deceit by
former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, covers how communism functions
and operates. A well-informed and aware nation will protect and defend its
freedoms.

It’s Not Like 1929, It’s 1938
I’ve overlayed a chart of the Nasdaq Composite Index from the “Anything
Goes 1990s” through March 2009 over the Dow Jones Industrials in the