How the Other Half Lives

Information is now divided into three distinct sections.  There's the stuff that's covered in the mainstream media--what I call "corporate news."   Then there's the vast, unregulated blogosphere where the real news breaks.  I mention that there are three sections because the Blogosphere is divided into left and right and each section not only has its own culture, but each half also has its own information.

Confirmation Bias--the tendency for people to only read the informatio that conforms to their world view--ensures that the left reads the left side of the Blogosphere, while the right only reads the right half. 

Here's an example.  If you get your information from the mainstream media or the left side of the blogosphere, you probably have never seen this chart.  If you pay attention to the right side of the blogosphere--Drudge, Instapundit, Power Line, IMAO etc.  You will be very familiar with the chart--having seen it on the first week of ever month since early last summer.

The chart is based on the Obama administration's estimate of job losses without his Stimulus package and with his Stimulus package.  The chart is so effective and powerful because someone has simply posted actual data on top of Obama's own projections.  The chart eventually went mainstream and last month's version was featured a Wall Street Journal editorial. 

I think that the bifurcation of the Blogosphere is one reason why the left and the right have trouble communicating.  So for example, when Obama talks about the jobs his Stimulus package has "created or saved" the Right will think of the chart and immediately understand that the claim is ridiculous.  The left and the mainstream media--who have never seen the chart--don't understand why readers of the right side of the blogosphere audibly guffaw when ever someone repeats the administration's silly claim. 

Comments

[todd]

You mean like this report from CBS news back in May
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/18/business/econwatch/entry5023220.shtml

I'm pretty sure I have regularly seen that chart in mainstream news outlets and the 'left' side of the blogosphere.

I also would point out that the 'left' side of the blogosphere predicted the unemployment rate would continue to rise because the stimulus was much too small and relied too much on tax cuts. Unfortunately, the left was not listened to as they were drowned out by criticisms from the right and the conventional wisdom of the Obama economic team of Rubin, Summers, et al.

Too bad people on the right seem to believe that by reading mainstream media they are reading the 'left' media because they are, in fact, not at all the same.

[Jim Torgeson]

The bank bailout did little for anyone but the banks. Take the bailout money, divide out among all needy Americans and it would have done something. Heck, give it to people that may have bought cars! Then, we wouldn't have bailed out GM and Chrysler.

The last number on Cash 4 Clunkers said that it cost each $22,000 per car?!

No matter what, if you put it through government's hands, it costs $$$.

In this case, it cost $$$ and jobs.

[Bill]

Well for months I've been hearing the Obama people say they expect unemployment to hit 10 percent, so I think that chart has been obsolete for some time.

[Steve F.]

And before the stimulus package, they promised that the unemployment rate wouldn't go over 8% if that legislation got passed.

I wonder what the promise will be for the next stimulus package?

[Daniel]

Indeed, unemployment has risen higher than Obama's original estimates, but those of us on "the left" warned of it because the stimulus was too modest. Perhaps if the remaining TARP funds are used for a jobs program we will get more bang for our buck.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this notion among the right (yes, this progressive reads right-wing blogs) that jobs "created or saved" is nonsense is itself a ludicrous claim - http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/11/and-they-say-that-allan-meltzer-used-to-be-a-real-economist.html . Economics is not a discipline that can be studied in isolation and reproduced in a lab; historical observation, and the resulting models, are the only tools in the economist's toolbox.