Look below at the first paragraph to a business section article, an op-ed, and an editorial, all within the Sunday New York Times. Note the stale imagery:
I was a teaching assistant for college freshman in Introductory Economics courses. Their view of economic development was highly colored by these journalistic prejudices, believing the rich parasites and cheats. If such businessmen were historically disadvantaged minorities we would be warned about generalizing, about dehumanizing them, about neglecting their many positive attributes, or putting their vices into perspective through comparisons. In fact, even though the black homocide rate is 7 times that of whites, or that little old ladies are less likely to hijack an airplane than young middle eastern men, those same journalists argue that it is imperative that all people are treated the same. For most people, generalizing is over or under used, an a selective basis, for the "greater good".
My Big Fat CEO PaycheckThe existence of Enron and WorldCom says little about the pervasiveness of fraud in business relative to anything relevant, like other countries, times, or organizations (eg, government). But unfortunate incidents are used to generalize capriciously against those we really did not like in the first place. For a journalist--who is much more articulate and better read than the rich businessmen they write about--the enmity comes easy because their envy is rationalized as a more noble egalitarianism.
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
THE spectacle of once-respected corporate titans doing perp walks - Martha Stewart, Bernard J. Ebbers, Richard M. Scrushy, the list seems endless - has pretty well tarnished the title of chief executive.
The Risk Not Taken
Richard Dooling
ELIOT SPITZER, the New York attorney general, has made a career out of spanking arrogant fat cats on the front page. We cheered when he busted those shifty stockbrokers for selling us shares of Enron and WorldCom,.
Viva Los Regulators
Editorial
We have seen one corporate chieftain after another, the likes of Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom and John Rigas of Adelphia, doing the perp walk recently through the morass of business scandals. Federal regulators are in striking distance of Maurice Greenberg of the American International Group, an icon of American business. And many shareholders of Enron are licking their lips in anticipation of the trials of its former chief executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.
I was a teaching assistant for college freshman in Introductory Economics courses. Their view of economic development was highly colored by these journalistic prejudices, believing the rich parasites and cheats. If such businessmen were historically disadvantaged minorities we would be warned about generalizing, about dehumanizing them, about neglecting their many positive attributes, or putting their vices into perspective through comparisons. In fact, even though the black homocide rate is 7 times that of whites, or that little old ladies are less likely to hijack an airplane than young middle eastern men, those same journalists argue that it is imperative that all people are treated the same. For most people, generalizing is over or under used, an a selective basis, for the "greater good".
HedgeFundGuy - am 2005-04-04 02:31 - Rubrik: economics
themel meinte am 4. Apr, 23:15:
Yup...
I always thought that was a peculiarity of European culture, but obviously the NYT isn't immune either. It pretty much seems to be the view that most economically unsophisticated people hold, and I certainly thought that way when I was in school. I like to suggest that Ayn Rand should be required reading in school, just to point out that there's a different way of looking at these things.
