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Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

227 points by minimax 10y ago

maze-le 10y ago
I stopped reading this site some years ago. It had, and probably still has some interesting opinins and analysis. Most content is pretty far fetched / sensationalist, but if you have your grain of salt, this is not a problem, since most media outlets do this in one form or another. About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted (it is obviously not stated as such, but most opinion-pieces speak for themself). I don't know what could have caused that shift, but I think you can generate more traffic and hence more profit, Lokey view on this explains a lot.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I was a daily reader of ZH going back to its very beginning. The tone of it's articles and comments became unbearable ~2011 so now I only go there a couple times a year out of nostalgia.
  - 21 10y ago
    I was IP banned from that site around 2011 because I left a comment saying that if you did what the site was preaching in the previous two years (2009-2011), meaning shorting the market because the second collapse is just around the corner, you would have lost a ton of money.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  >I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism Like any conspiracy site, it's going to attract people who share a view of the world in which everything must be orchestrated, controlled - a reason for all things. Randomness has no place in the mind of a conspiracy theorist. The order provided by conspiracies comfort the conspiracy theorist: paradoxically making the world feel safer, more ordered while simultaneously believing that evil people have devoted their lives to ruining yours. If you think about it, such a psychology is naturally authoritarian-leaning. Such a mind yearns for stability, order and control.
  - tomp 10y ago
    So, all people who were saying that NSA is spying on the whole internet (before Snowden, that was the conspiracy) were secretly authoritarian?!
    - tptacek 10y ago
      No, the spying the NSA does on the Internet falls more into the category of "worst kept secrets" than "conspiracy theories".
      - tomp 10y ago
        You could say that about all conspiracy theories, especially those that have since come true.
        tptacek 10y ago
        So what? That's not analysis, it's numerology. Just because some things are true doesn't mean all theories are equally deserving of dignity. But the notion that the USG was monitoring the Internet was entirely deserving of dignity: * It's their job * The software security industry is full of people who used to hack professionally for them * There'd been a major news story roughly every other year since the 1990s Echelon thing about NSA dragnet surveillance There are still things people say about NSA that have the tenor of conspiracy theories --- some of them being things Snowden actually said! --- and you might be able to make observations about the character of the people who believe those things (I don't know, that was the other commenter's point). But the basic outline of what NSA is doing with the Internet is not a conspiracy theory.
        saalweachter 10y ago
        Another important point-- once you get into the conspiracy theory mindset, it's not so much that a conspiracy or some conspiracies happen. There's a tendency to believe that all conspiracies are true, even the contradictory ones. Your average conspiracy theorist doesn't just believe the NSA is spying on Americans [they better be spying on non-Americans; we taxpayers are paying them a lot of money to do so] or that Putin has had a few guys killed. Your average conspiracy theorist believes that the Moon landing was faked, JFK was assassinated by a coordinated effort of at least three different groups, there are cures to cancer and all other diseases being kept secret by corporations and/or the gov'ment, Hitler is still alive, aliens have visited the Earth, are living here, and have secret treaties with various states, the UN has real power, various diseases [eg, HIV] are man-made, and various biblical artifacts have been found and kept secret. You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing. It's this weird credulity veiled as skepticism for the establishment
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  Could you link to a couple of examples? I am not interested enough to go searching. I did find an anti-vaxxer piece on the frontpage, which did not exactly inspire trust: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-should-hate-us-read-lance-simmens-article-banned-huffington-post http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-sh...
  - tomp 10y ago
    > Some very, very powerful and influential people are terrified of it and are doing everything they can to make sure it never sees the light of day. Which makes me infinitely more curious. Which is quite solid logic - why would "they" want to ban something unless they're afraid of it?
    - pjc50 10y ago
      Maybe they're afraid of it because it's genuinely misleading and dangerous to public health? Just because innocent people are sometimes harassed by the authorities does not mean you can use harrasment by authorities as evidence that someone's actually in the right.
  - tcoppi 10y ago
    They post things like this all the time. I would take it not as them editorially advocating the position, but rather getting information otherwise censored by other media out there. Sometimes the information is not reported for good reason, such as this. You need a very good BS and relevancy filter to find the few nuggets of gold that are put out maybe a few times a year by ZH.
    - themartorana 10y ago
      An "even a broken clock is right twice a day" method of viewing a content publication is a funny way of explaining away dangerous "journalism" for a couple of stuck clock hands.
      - 10y ago
- actionwords 10y ago
  About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted Clearly you don't realize that fascists would increase taxes AND social welfare.
- natrius 10y ago
  In a world of centralized media, the incentives led outlets to promote viewpoints supported by the elite and omit viewpoints that would offend them. Their access to viewers, leads and advertising dollars required the party line product we all recognize. In a world of decentralized media, you can't get readers to keep coming back if you're just another mainstream news source. Instead, you have to choose a niche viewpoint and convince readers that your outlet is the only place they can get information about it. This results in a competition between niche news outlets to present as extreme a viewpoint as their readers will tolerate, or create new viewpoints that can attract an audience. The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable.
  - spectrum1234 10y ago
    "The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable." Maybe, but let's never forget centralized media is much, much worse. Many seem to forget this unfortunately. Choice is always a good thing.
  - danielweber 10y ago
    The simpler, less sinister explanation, is that normal moderate viewpoints do not pay the bills, but extreme and sensational viewpoints -- whatever the flavor -- do.
    - maze-le 10y ago
      There is truth in that, its a sad state of affairs...
    - natrius 10y ago
      That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not a conspiracy. It's just what's profitable.
- cloudjacker 10y ago
  I like the insight into the Credit Default Swap market, interest rates and debt balances that's been very useful to me
- fweespee_ch 10y ago
  > About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted (it is obviously not stated as such, but most opinion-pieces speak for themself). I think the problem with this is their ideological goals are to starve the beast and play at being antiestablishment. They were always unscrupulous about the how and have been since at least 2011 when I first noticed they existed. I honestly don't think the tone has changed substantially.
- carsongross 10y ago
  I think what you are noticing is a broader shift in the libertarian community: people are noticing that an open libertarian society isn't possible since most people aren't libertarians but would like the material benefits that more libertarianish societies offer. Many libertarians I know are now "nationalist libertarians", opposed to large scale immigration, increasingly skeptical of international free trade, and so on. A lot of ex-Ron Paul types are now Trump supporters. To me, this seems like the political/intellectual story of our time. It isn't happening in the mainstream media, of course, because libertarianism has never had the high ground there: you see it in the blogs and, of course, in the chans & reddit.
  - UK-AL 10y ago
    I don't how you can be libertarian and be opposed to free trade and immigration.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- tryitnow 10y ago
  This is a common trend among more ardent libertarians. I think it's due to a lot of libertarian predictions about the post-recession stimulus not coming true. I know, I was one of those libertarians who though Obama was going to usher in a period of high inflation-driven growth. I was completely, absolutely, and astoundingly wrong. My response was to update my beliefs, but some people's response to their theories being proven incorrect by reality is to become rigidly authoritarian. "If reality doesn't conform to my worldview, I will make it conform!" Remember the Communists, like modern libertarians, originally had a stateless society as their goal. I think this is what happened with ZH and many other libertarian leaning sites.
apercu 10y ago
A for profit news editorial site based on sensationalism. Why is anyone surprised? That's "news" today. Just turn on the television in the US. I haven't been able to watch CNN since the mid-90's.
- tomp 10y ago
  The value in ZH is that their sensationalism is pretty much the reverse of most other mainstream media. "Anti-establishment" as they say.
  - apercu 10y ago
    That's fair, I haven't read it.
    - tunap 10y ago
      You should. You should also take it for what it is, infotainment. I find reading an extreme viewpoint can be very informative after the alternative extreme is considered and skeptical comparisons are made. Finding the biases becomes easier, determining who is being more disingenuous is still tough. I must also be able to recognize & account for my bias/interest in the topic, as well. Back on topic: I know corruption can exist in any institution and lobbyists with the biggest bag of donations tend to win the laws that make their spurious practices 'legal', but I'm quite satisfied the majority of ZH's predictions haven't come to fruition. There is no solace in large-scale failure of any systems. One thing is for sure, when one does happen, you can bet a large number of ZH commentors will invoke "I told you so!".
MajesticHobo 10y ago
ZH's response: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...
- chombier 10y ago
  worth reading, thanks.
- anonu 10y ago
  They show their web traffic towards the end which seems to point to 1.5-2mm daily users. I don't really have too much context for such numbers. But it seems like it was enough to pay their disgruntled writer $100k+ per year.
- spuiszis 10y ago
  This is 100% worth reading. From ZH authors: > Regarding, the actual content of Bloomberg's platform giving voice to a disturbed individual, former drug dealer and alcoholic, we find it particularly amusing as it "accuse" Zero Hedge of being intent on generating profits. > Coming from Bloomberg we find this not only entertaining but somewhat hypocritical. > Incidentally, the chart above may explain why none other than our "competitor" Bloomberg decided it was its mission to voice a grievance of a disgruntled former employee who admitted it was his intention to "destroy" Zero Hedge.
- wyck 10y ago
  Important context to see both sides, certainly a questionable liability they knew about, I guess he worked so hard they felt it was a risk worth taking, which brings their judgement into question. The fact that all this drama is being publicly aired and used as a weapon does not put Zero Hedge in a good light, it's almost like Bloomberg baited them into this defensive posture.
- tobltobs 10y ago
  That is one of the most embarassaring public bitch fights ever. And this from a guy who uses Tyler Durden as his avatar.
nxzero 10y ago
>> "Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information." Translation: "Yes, we're attacking the competition." _____ Reply-To-Comments-Below: All editors make choices, and to me, this was the wrong choice. All this does in validate ZeroHedge is a threat and makes Bloomberg look like a wannabe thug. Beyond that, appears ZeroHedge made something of this disclaimer too: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...
- return0 10y ago
  anything wrong with that?
  - ecnal 10y ago
    Well, it's fair to take issue with the idea that ZH provides any information whatsoever, but I get the feeling that that's not what the parent commenter is upset about.
    - nxzero 10y ago
      Creative you are, and you're right, idea that Bloomberg would feel they're a competitor to ZH is a joke.
- Blackthorn 10y ago
  Plus it competes in the sense that an elephant competes with a squirrel for food.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  I mean, I think it would have been fine not to include a disclaimer at all; you'd have to be an idiot not to realize that. But what is wrong with this one? Or do you just want them to pretend nobody else exists?
dmichulke 10y ago
Zerohedge is one of the most remarkable web sites today. I started reading it after 2009 and today it's (along with HN) my daily read. For me as a Westerner there are few places where I can read non-mainstream opinions on things like the war in Syria, the oil price and currency wars, the daily SNAFU in the financial worldlike Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP). To be sure, the headlines are often sensationalist but the content often exceeds whatever analysis you can get to read from mainstream media (= the big online newspapers in the US, and Europe). Here is Zerohedge's response to the above article: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...
- tobltobs 10y ago
  That is astonishing. If you remove the usual conspiracy theories and the right wing populism crap there is not much more left than you can read on bloomberg or any other financial news site.
  - whatok 10y ago
    That's completely untrue. Zero Hedge breaks news before a lot of outlets and writes on a lot of market events that other sources will not touch. I'm not disagreeing that you need to have a filter when reading but they absolutely do provide value.
    - tobltobs 10y ago
      > breaks news before a lot of outlets Any examples?
      - dismal2 10y ago
        All their coverage of hft when nobody was talking about it
        21 10y ago
chollida1 10y ago
If no one has been to the site before here it is: http://www.zerohedge.com/ http://www.zerohedge.com/ Believe it or not it has a huge following in the finance world due to it often being one of the first ones to break or provide color on important stories. It's not uncommon at all to see a row of traders with tweet deck open allocating a single column to Zero hedge, they are just that prolific with their output. The downside of the site is that they tend to have a very big bearish slant though. No one has ever accused them of being neutral. I hope they continue to run the site. I find it provides a fair bit of value to me.
- tobltobs 10y ago
  > first ones to break or provide color on important stories. No question about the color, but do you have an example for those "break on important stories".
  - whatok 10y ago
    Little old but this is the first example I could think of but this was absolutely not covered in depth by any mainstream outlet http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/coming-soon-theater-near-you-mbias-1-billion-world-war-z http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/coming-soon-theater...
    - runako 10y ago
      This looks like analysis; did they break anything new here? Also -- were they right on the analysis? The stock chart is inconclusive.
    - tobltobs 10y ago
      That is not a break on an import story. It would have been if they would have posted this before Moody downgraded Zohars. This is nothing else then some collections of freely available news mixed together with some pubertal slang. And their included predictions have a bad hit rate, even for ZH standards.
alistproducer2 10y ago
ZH is the infowars of the financial world.
- libertymcateer 10y ago
  Hear hear. This site has long been a bewildering mishmash of doomsaying and cassandra-like apocalyptic predictions - but the other shoe has simply never dropped. During the days when the financial crisis was hot and fresh this brand of naysaying seemed really insightful and prescient - but, in retrospect, it was just something of a firehose of "short the system." That a lot of analysts read it doesn't make it credible. A lot of politicos read infowars too - it doesn't mean it isn't mostly hyped up garbage. Far too many of their headlines are too sensationalist and make too many testable claims and predictions - they are chicken little, and the sky simply hasn't fallen.
  - alistproducer2 10y ago
    yep, the crisis made asshats like Peter Schiff seem like smart guys. Lots of doomdayers created awesome careers because the world legitimately did appear to be falling apart. The irony is, if anyone had listened to the ZH's and the Schiffs of the world, it actually would've fallen apart.
- pdq 10y ago
  I think a more accurate analogy: ZeroHedge is the 4chan of financial news. Especially all the sarcastic headlines, account names, and comments.
andysinclair 10y ago
I love the potential conflict of interest statement in the article: "Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information."
- RockyMcNuts 10y ago
  The Bloomberg journo who put that in was either chuckling or clenching their teeth, or both.
dboreham 10y ago
Well...this just succeeded in adding more readership to ZH. Their "anti-article" to the Bloomberg piece is fascinating reading.
lowpro 10y ago
It's funny that one of the largest flag theory sites, sovereign man, refers to zerohedge almost exclusively for political and financial theories. I thought they were actually run by the same person(s) for a time. When I came across zerohedge about 2 years ago, it looked like they were bearish all the time, and right less than half the time. I think people see what's right and don't pay attention to when it's wrong.
dismal2 10y ago
I think whether you like the site or not depends mostly on if you think there was a fundamental recovery after 2008 or just an asset bubble generated by extremely easy monetary policy around the world. Only time will tell who's "right" in the end!
moon_of_moon 10y ago
Avid ZH reader since before it had its own domain -- this list is incomplete. There are several bloggers who have posted links to their work under the name durden.
Mikeb85 10y ago
You mean the "the sky is falling so sell everything and buy gold" blog? Might be good entertainment for wannabe daytraders and inexperienced retails, but they're almost always wrong about things...
fweespee_ch 10y ago
> (Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information.) Does anyone else feel this is particularly generous? ZeroHedge is borderline conspiracy theorist nonsense surrounded by occasionally correct financial analysis with a level of accuracy on par with a dart board.
- tanderson92 10y ago
  The point isn't to be generous, it is to disclose to readers possible conflicts of interest.
kostyk 10y ago
They published an answer to the article. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...
mark_l_watson 10y ago
With some reluctance, I follow ZH on Twitter. Like other sites like Russian Times, Haretz, Al Jazera, it is good to be skeptical, but it is also good to break out of the hold that mainstream media has. In the USA, the "news" is so bad that I honestly believe that I get more information from random reading, just a few minutes a day, of sources from many countries on the web than the network "news." I travel a fair amount, and it seems like people in other countries don't have an obsession with "news" that so many of my acquaintances in the USA have. I think that one hour a week is about the maximum amount of time anyone should spend on the news - better to spend the time engaging in business, family and friend time, write a book, volunteer with a charity, community involvement, etc.
snake_plissken 10y ago
I have a love hate relationship with Zerohedge. On the one hand, they can produce some really amazing and compelling content, whether its their own analysis or an analysis of an article from somewhere else on the web. A recent article of memory: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/what-just-happened-oil http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/what-just-happened-.... But over the years the site's tone has changed. While they are still dedicated to financial news and insights, they post a lot of survivalist non-sense and it feels more like a far Right wing blog now, advocating you to buy gold in one article that sits below another highlighting proof that the gold market is fixed. I can support a position of reporting on everything and anything, but these inconsistencies and the fact that there is a dearth of articles with viewpoints and analysis from the Left has led me to question their true motives now. They'll also censor you for trying to bring this up in their comments section. A few years ago my account was banned after I called them out for putting up an article stating how some Goldman report was BS, while simultaneously they had up a blog post that used stats from a different Goldman report. I still visit the site everyday. They still occasionally break some headline stories and you still find some really great articles. But generally it's become an insufferable website.
- tomp 10y ago
  That aritcle actually has an interesting follow up. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-21/something-blowing-oil http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-21/something-blowing-o... Basically... they were right! (You can cite this as an example of quality reporting or as an example of cherry-picking research...)
bernardlunn 10y ago
Used to have really ground breaking investigatve journalism in obscure market structure stuff. Went sensational click bait.
pessimizer 10y ago
Was an interesting site in the beginning, but got stupider and stupider. My guess based on this article is that it's a 419-style strategy; stupid people don't use adblockers as much.
tmaly 10y ago
I stopped reading the site several years back. It has too much of a end of the world doom and gloom view. Yes it does provide a different view against what you see in the mainstream news. You tend to get sucked into this worldview it presents, and you end up getting very little done on your side projects.
jonstokes 10y ago
I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site was distorting my judgement. Here is what ZH is good for: they have stuff before anyone else, because they'll print almost anything. For instance, after San Bernardino those guys had details way before other outlets, because they're willing to go to press with just "some guy overheard this on the police scanner and tweeted it". So when you read ZH you see stuff first, but you place a big mental asterisk by it until their scoop trickles up the media food chain and starts to get confirmed as real reporters do actual work on it. I like seeing stuff first, before everyone else gets it, hence my continued regular reading of ZH (again, I keep a 40lb bag of Morton Salt by my desk with the ZH logo on it, though).
- ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
  Frankly, you should be keeping that salt boulder at the ready for all media you read today. Not just ZH.
- dismal2 10y ago
  What do you think about the rally now? I too have been following the site since it started. Around 2011 or so I realized I was missing the greatest rally, possibly ever, but I was an unemployed millennial with no money to invest. In the past 2 years or so I'm finally on a good financial footing but I really think this monetary experiment is coming to an end and I dont think I'm thinking that only from reading doom media. Hope I'm wrong, because another downturn would be bad for this country.
  - mahyarm 10y ago
    I've realized in my life trying to predict macro is pretty damn hard. Because even if something is irrational, it might be in a whole bunch of very powerful group's interests to keep on propping up the irrational for a very long time. For example, I come from Vancouver. In Vancouver, the 2007 real estate bubble never stopped, wages stayed at their Reno, NV levels. Having Vancouver RE has had about a %30 annualized return for about 15 years. Now an average house is about 1.5-2 million dollars. The housing market is completely irrational, but knowing how it works it might be another 'boom' decade or it might all collapse on itself in the next few years.
known 10y ago
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779 http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779 is the best from ZH
chatmasta 10y ago
Like many here, I've read ZeroHedge for a few years. I loosely agree with the analysis that the tone has become "conspiratorial," but this argument fails to disambiguate between a "conspiratorial" tone and the intentionally provocative rhetoric of the ZeroHedge authors. They KNOW their content falls under all those labels so derisively ascribed to it, because that is their intention. My reading of the [conspiratorial|far-fetched|proto-facist] content on ZeroHedge is that it's not meant to be literal, but a veneer of SHOCK VALUE that serves two purposes. First, it gets readership due to classic clickbait psychology. Second, its mere existence demonstrably proves ZeroHedge is an "alternative" media site undiluted by editorial filters. This distinguishes it from every mainstream media publication, and that alone makes it worth reading (provided you can find some signal worth your time). The shock value signals to astute readers that ZeroHedge is not a traditional site, and that yes, you SHOULD take everything they say with a grain of salt. But the logical jump from "you should take it with a grain of salt" to "you should ignore it" misses the simple fact that its writers INTEND for the content to be provocative. They WANT you to take it with a grain of salt. Taking things "with a grain of salt" is GOOD for you. It means you are THINKING CRITICALLY. People should be taking everything with a grain of salt. What alarms me most about ZeroHedge is not its content, but the attempted ostracizing of that content by other publications, as if the shock value justifies ignoring it all together. Incidentally, this is the same smear tactic that mainstream media sites are applying to Donald Trump: he says <thing> we find offensive, therefore <every other thing> he says must be invalid. If we applied this logic to all information, there would be no difference of opinion in the world. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, the person yelling "fire" might be the one worth listening to, and we should always question our own beliefs and fear consensus. To quote him directly, they [0] were "the ones shouting fire when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed... [W]ho’s going to decide?" [1] [2] [0] "They" were the socialist party of philadelphia, who opposed the draft of WWI, "on the grounds that military conscription constituted involuntary servitude, which is prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU (thanks to HN commenter in another thread for linking to this today) [2] http://documents.ariadacapo.net/borrowed/2006_11_christopher_hitchens/christopher_hitchens_2006_11_talk_transcript.pdf http://documents.ariadacapo.net/borrowed/2006_11_christopher...
sireat 10y ago
The huge pro Russia bias just became unbearable after a while. Whatever Putin does is consider awesome, whatever Obama does is considered bad. China coverage seemed somewhat more balanced.
sremani 10y ago
Here is ZH's article about the unmasking http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...
SovietDissident 10y ago
ZH may be early and there may be some separation of the wheat from the chaff that one must do, but their general bearish theme resonates as true based on the data. The BLS numbers are phony. They monkey around with the denominator, so drop-outs from the workforce are not counted. They also count one person losing a good full-time job but gaining multiple part-time jobs as a net positive. Never mind those numbers---all you need to know is that the adult labor force participation rate is at its lowest in about 4 decades.[0] The ratio of average income to home prices is about twice that of the 50s/60s (over 3.3) Also, if unemployment were measured as it was decades earlier, the unemployment number would be much higher. Outside of tech, where tons of money has flowed thanks to the Fed's helicopter money and investors seeking higher returns (as interest rates are ~0), the economy has been doing lousy. Yet all we're told via mainstream sources is that the Fed and Obama saved the day and shutup about it already! As others have noted, this expansion is long-in-the-tooth, at least by historical standards. Companies' inventories are up, which also signals an economic slowdown in the works. After QE1, QE2, QE3, and bond buying totaling $4 trillion (!) of expansion of the monetary supply, we've had a paltry sub-3% GDP growth (0.5% in the first quarter of this year!). A former Fed board member admitted recently that they "front-loaded" the recovery; indeed, it should be noted that this "recovery" is almost a direct result of the Fed's actions regarding monetary expansion. This also explains the fantastic increase in asset values (classic cars, houses, art, stocks, etc.) The Fed is a private cartel. It is the third central bank in the history of the U.S., and was created so the banks would no longer be forced to compete with each other. It is not independent of politics (far from it)---for example, Yellen knows she should raise interest rates, but knows that the Democrats will be thrown out of office if she does before 2016 (see the minuscule 25 basis-point increase that caused huge market turmoil late last year), and a Republican would throw her out the day he was sworn in. Even if you don't believe the "conspiracy", the fact of the matter is that central planning is disastrous, and it is especially disastrous when it comes to the price of currency (i.e., interest rates), as that affects everything else in an advanced economy (especially long-term capital investments). ZH has done a good job keeping us apprised of these developments. They operate under the assumption that the current fiat currently standard cannot survive, and they are right. Of course the timing is virtually impossible, but I (like them) predict a bad recession in the next year or two. Over the longer term, the system will inevitably collapse. [0] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/percentage-workers-labor-pool-falls-year-low/zfLQrKjCyhra95v8PJxWcI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/percentage-w...
Tycho 10y ago
15 posts a day of as much as 1500 words? That's kind of... prodigious.

227 points by minimax 10y ago

I stopped reading this site some years ago. It had, and probably still has some interesting opinins and analysis. Most content is pretty far fetched / sensationalist, but if you have your grain of salt, this is not a problem, since most media outlets do this in one form or another. About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted (it is obviously not stated as such, but most opinion-pieces speak for themself). I don't know what could have caused that shift, but I think you can generate more traffic and hence more profit, Lokey view on this explains a lot.

alistproducer2 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. I was a daily reader of ZH going back to its very beginning. The tone of it's articles and comments became unbearable ~2011 so now I only go there a couple times a year out of nostalgia.
- 21 10y ago
  I was IP banned from that site around 2011 because I left a comment saying that if you did what the site was preaching in the previous two years (2009-2011), meaning shorting the market because the second collapse is just around the corner, you would have lost a ton of money.
alistproducer2 10y ago
>I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism Like any conspiracy site, it's going to attract people who share a view of the world in which everything must be orchestrated, controlled - a reason for all things. Randomness has no place in the mind of a conspiracy theorist. The order provided by conspiracies comfort the conspiracy theorist: paradoxically making the world feel safer, more ordered while simultaneously believing that evil people have devoted their lives to ruining yours. If you think about it, such a psychology is naturally authoritarian-leaning. Such a mind yearns for stability, order and control.
- tomp 10y ago
  So, all people who were saying that NSA is spying on the whole internet (before Snowden, that was the conspiracy) were secretly authoritarian?!
  - tptacek 10y ago
    No, the spying the NSA does on the Internet falls more into the category of "worst kept secrets" than "conspiracy theories".
    - tomp 10y ago
      You could say that about all conspiracy theories, especially those that have since come true.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        So what? That's not analysis, it's numerology. Just because some things are true doesn't mean all theories are equally deserving of dignity. But the notion that the USG was monitoring the Internet was entirely deserving of dignity: * It's their job * The software security industry is full of people who used to hack professionally for them * There'd been a major news story roughly every other year since the 1990s Echelon thing about NSA dragnet surveillance There are still things people say about NSA that have the tenor of conspiracy theories --- some of them being things Snowden actually said! --- and you might be able to make observations about the character of the people who believe those things (I don't know, that was the other commenter's point). But the basic outline of what NSA is doing with the Internet is not a conspiracy theory.
        saalweachter 10y ago
        Another important point-- once you get into the conspiracy theory mindset, it's not so much that a conspiracy or some conspiracies happen. There's a tendency to believe that all conspiracies are true, even the contradictory ones. Your average conspiracy theorist doesn't just believe the NSA is spying on Americans [they better be spying on non-Americans; we taxpayers are paying them a lot of money to do so] or that Putin has had a few guys killed. Your average conspiracy theorist believes that the Moon landing was faked, JFK was assassinated by a coordinated effort of at least three different groups, there are cures to cancer and all other diseases being kept secret by corporations and/or the gov'ment, Hitler is still alive, aliens have visited the Earth, are living here, and have secret treaties with various states, the UN has real power, various diseases [eg, HIV] are man-made, and various biblical artifacts have been found and kept secret. You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing. It's this weird credulity veiled as skepticism for the establishment
TorKlingberg 10y ago
Could you link to a couple of examples? I am not interested enough to go searching. I did find an anti-vaxxer piece on the frontpage, which did not exactly inspire trust: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-should-hate-us-read-lance-simmens-article-banned-huffington-post http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/why-our-children-sh...
- tomp 10y ago
  > Some very, very powerful and influential people are terrified of it and are doing everything they can to make sure it never sees the light of day. Which makes me infinitely more curious. Which is quite solid logic - why would "they" want to ban something unless they're afraid of it?
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Maybe they're afraid of it because it's genuinely misleading and dangerous to public health? Just because innocent people are sometimes harassed by the authorities does not mean you can use harrasment by authorities as evidence that someone's actually in the right.
- tcoppi 10y ago
  They post things like this all the time. I would take it not as them editorially advocating the position, but rather getting information otherwise censored by other media out there. Sometimes the information is not reported for good reason, such as this. You need a very good BS and relevancy filter to find the few nuggets of gold that are put out maybe a few times a year by ZH.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    An "even a broken clock is right twice a day" method of viewing a content publication is a funny way of explaining away dangerous "journalism" for a couple of stuck clock hands.
    - 10y ago
actionwords 10y ago
About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted Clearly you don't realize that fascists would increase taxes AND social welfare.
natrius 10y ago
In a world of centralized media, the incentives led outlets to promote viewpoints supported by the elite and omit viewpoints that would offend them. Their access to viewers, leads and advertising dollars required the party line product we all recognize. In a world of decentralized media, you can't get readers to keep coming back if you're just another mainstream news source. Instead, you have to choose a niche viewpoint and convince readers that your outlet is the only place they can get information about it. This results in a competition between niche news outlets to present as extreme a viewpoint as their readers will tolerate, or create new viewpoints that can attract an audience. The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable.
- spectrum1234 10y ago
  "The world is being radicalized by capital. Dividing us is profitable." Maybe, but let's never forget centralized media is much, much worse. Many seem to forget this unfortunately. Choice is always a good thing.
- danielweber 10y ago
  The simpler, less sinister explanation, is that normal moderate viewpoints do not pay the bills, but extreme and sensational viewpoints -- whatever the flavor -- do.
  - maze-le 10y ago
    There is truth in that, its a sad state of affairs...
  - natrius 10y ago
    That's exactly what I'm saying. It's not a conspiracy. It's just what's profitable.
cloudjacker 10y ago
I like the insight into the Credit Default Swap market, interest rates and debt balances that's been very useful to me
fweespee_ch 10y ago
> About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When I skip the articles nowdays, I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism, as long as taxes are reduced and social welfare is gutted (it is obviously not stated as such, but most opinion-pieces speak for themself). I think the problem with this is their ideological goals are to starve the beast and play at being antiestablishment. They were always unscrupulous about the how and have been since at least 2011 when I first noticed they existed. I honestly don't think the tone has changed substantially.
carsongross 10y ago
I think what you are noticing is a broader shift in the libertarian community: people are noticing that an open libertarian society isn't possible since most people aren't libertarians but would like the material benefits that more libertarianish societies offer. Many libertarians I know are now "nationalist libertarians", opposed to large scale immigration, increasingly skeptical of international free trade, and so on. A lot of ex-Ron Paul types are now Trump supporters. To me, this seems like the political/intellectual story of our time. It isn't happening in the mainstream media, of course, because libertarianism has never had the high ground there: you see it in the blogs and, of course, in the chans & reddit.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  I don't how you can be libertarian and be opposed to free trade and immigration.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tryitnow 10y ago
This is a common trend among more ardent libertarians. I think it's due to a lot of libertarian predictions about the post-recession stimulus not coming true. I know, I was one of those libertarians who though Obama was going to usher in a period of high inflation-driven growth. I was completely, absolutely, and astoundingly wrong. My response was to update my beliefs, but some people's response to their theories being proven incorrect by reality is to become rigidly authoritarian. "If reality doesn't conform to my worldview, I will make it conform!" Remember the Communists, like modern libertarians, originally had a stateless society as their goal. I think this is what happened with ZH and many other libertarian leaning sites.

apercu 10y ago

A for profit news editorial site based on sensationalism. Why is anyone surprised? That's "news" today. Just turn on the television in the US. I haven't been able to watch CNN since the mid-90's.

tomp 10y ago
The value in ZH is that their sensationalism is pretty much the reverse of most other mainstream media. "Anti-establishment" as they say.
- apercu 10y ago
  That's fair, I haven't read it.
  - tunap 10y ago
    You should. You should also take it for what it is, infotainment. I find reading an extreme viewpoint can be very informative after the alternative extreme is considered and skeptical comparisons are made. Finding the biases becomes easier, determining who is being more disingenuous is still tough. I must also be able to recognize & account for my bias/interest in the topic, as well. Back on topic: I know corruption can exist in any institution and lobbyists with the biggest bag of donations tend to win the laws that make their spurious practices 'legal', but I'm quite satisfied the majority of ZH's predictions haven't come to fruition. There is no solace in large-scale failure of any systems. One thing is for sure, when one does happen, you can bet a large number of ZH commentors will invoke "I told you so!".

MajesticHobo 10y ago

ZH's response: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

chombier 10y ago
worth reading, thanks.
anonu 10y ago
They show their web traffic towards the end which seems to point to 1.5-2mm daily users. I don't really have too much context for such numbers. But it seems like it was enough to pay their disgruntled writer $100k+ per year.
spuiszis 10y ago
This is 100% worth reading. From ZH authors: > Regarding, the actual content of Bloomberg's platform giving voice to a disturbed individual, former drug dealer and alcoholic, we find it particularly amusing as it "accuse" Zero Hedge of being intent on generating profits. > Coming from Bloomberg we find this not only entertaining but somewhat hypocritical. > Incidentally, the chart above may explain why none other than our "competitor" Bloomberg decided it was its mission to voice a grievance of a disgruntled former employee who admitted it was his intention to "destroy" Zero Hedge.
wyck 10y ago
Important context to see both sides, certainly a questionable liability they knew about, I guess he worked so hard they felt it was a risk worth taking, which brings their judgement into question. The fact that all this drama is being publicly aired and used as a weapon does not put Zero Hedge in a good light, it's almost like Bloomberg baited them into this defensive posture.
tobltobs 10y ago
That is one of the most embarassaring public bitch fights ever. And this from a guy who uses Tyler Durden as his avatar.

nxzero 10y ago

>> "Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information." Translation: "Yes, we're attacking the competition." _____ Reply-To-Comments-Below: All editors make choices, and to me, this was the wrong choice. All this does in validate ZeroHedge is a threat and makes Bloomberg look like a wannabe thug. Beyond that, appears ZeroHedge made something of this disclaimer too: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

return0 10y ago
anything wrong with that?
- ecnal 10y ago
  Well, it's fair to take issue with the idea that ZH provides any information whatsoever, but I get the feeling that that's not what the parent commenter is upset about.
  - nxzero 10y ago
    Creative you are, and you're right, idea that Bloomberg would feel they're a competitor to ZH is a joke.
Blackthorn 10y ago
Plus it competes in the sense that an elephant competes with a squirrel for food.
emodendroket 10y ago
I mean, I think it would have been fine not to include a disclaimer at all; you'd have to be an idiot not to realize that. But what is wrong with this one? Or do you just want them to pretend nobody else exists?

dmichulke 10y ago

Zerohedge is one of the most remarkable web sites today. I started reading it after 2009 and today it's (along with HN) my daily read. For me as a Westerner there are few places where I can read non-mainstream opinions on things like the war in Syria, the oil price and currency wars, the daily SNAFU in the financial worldlike Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP). To be sure, the headlines are often sensationalist but the content often exceeds whatever analysis you can get to read from mainstream media (= the big online newspapers in the US, and Europe). Here is Zerohedge's response to the above article: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

tobltobs 10y ago
That is astonishing. If you remove the usual conspiracy theories and the right wing populism crap there is not much more left than you can read on bloomberg or any other financial news site.
- whatok 10y ago
  That's completely untrue. Zero Hedge breaks news before a lot of outlets and writes on a lot of market events that other sources will not touch. I'm not disagreeing that you need to have a filter when reading but they absolutely do provide value.
  - tobltobs 10y ago
    > breaks news before a lot of outlets Any examples?
    - dismal2 10y ago
      All their coverage of hft when nobody was talking about it
      - 21 10y ago

chollida1 10y ago

If no one has been to the site before here it is: http://www.zerohedge.com/ http://www.zerohedge.com/ Believe it or not it has a huge following in the finance world due to it often being one of the first ones to break or provide color on important stories. It's not uncommon at all to see a row of traders with tweet deck open allocating a single column to Zero hedge, they are just that prolific with their output. The downside of the site is that they tend to have a very big bearish slant though. No one has ever accused them of being neutral. I hope they continue to run the site. I find it provides a fair bit of value to me.

tobltobs 10y ago
> first ones to break or provide color on important stories. No question about the color, but do you have an example for those "break on important stories".
- whatok 10y ago
  Little old but this is the first example I could think of but this was absolutely not covered in depth by any mainstream outlet http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/coming-soon-theater-near-you-mbias-1-billion-world-war-z http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/coming-soon-theater...
  - runako 10y ago
    This looks like analysis; did they break anything new here? Also -- were they right on the analysis? The stock chart is inconclusive.
  - tobltobs 10y ago
    That is not a break on an import story. It would have been if they would have posted this before Moody downgraded Zohars. This is nothing else then some collections of freely available news mixed together with some pubertal slang. And their included predictions have a bad hit rate, even for ZH standards.

alistproducer2 10y ago

ZH is the infowars of the financial world.

libertymcateer 10y ago
Hear hear. This site has long been a bewildering mishmash of doomsaying and cassandra-like apocalyptic predictions - but the other shoe has simply never dropped. During the days when the financial crisis was hot and fresh this brand of naysaying seemed really insightful and prescient - but, in retrospect, it was just something of a firehose of "short the system." That a lot of analysts read it doesn't make it credible. A lot of politicos read infowars too - it doesn't mean it isn't mostly hyped up garbage. Far too many of their headlines are too sensationalist and make too many testable claims and predictions - they are chicken little, and the sky simply hasn't fallen.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  yep, the crisis made asshats like Peter Schiff seem like smart guys. Lots of doomdayers created awesome careers because the world legitimately did appear to be falling apart. The irony is, if anyone had listened to the ZH's and the Schiffs of the world, it actually would've fallen apart.
pdq 10y ago
I think a more accurate analogy: ZeroHedge is the 4chan of financial news. Especially all the sarcastic headlines, account names, and comments.

andysinclair 10y ago

I love the potential conflict of interest statement in the article: "Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information."

RockyMcNuts 10y ago
The Bloomberg journo who put that in was either chuckling or clenching their teeth, or both.

dboreham 10y ago

Well...this just succeeded in adding more readership to ZH. Their "anti-article" to the Bloomberg piece is fascinating reading.

lowpro 10y ago

It's funny that one of the largest flag theory sites, sovereign man, refers to zerohedge almost exclusively for political and financial theories. I thought they were actually run by the same person(s) for a time. When I came across zerohedge about 2 years ago, it looked like they were bearish all the time, and right less than half the time. I think people see what's right and don't pay attention to when it's wrong.

dismal2 10y ago

I think whether you like the site or not depends mostly on if you think there was a fundamental recovery after 2008 or just an asset bubble generated by extremely easy monetary policy around the world. Only time will tell who's "right" in the end!

moon_of_moon 10y ago

Avid ZH reader since before it had its own domain -- this list is incomplete. There are several bloggers who have posted links to their work under the name durden.

Mikeb85 10y ago

You mean the "the sky is falling so sell everything and buy gold" blog? Might be good entertainment for wannabe daytraders and inexperienced retails, but they're almost always wrong about things...

fweespee_ch 10y ago

> (Bloomberg LP competes with Zero Hedge in providing financial news and information.) Does anyone else feel this is particularly generous? ZeroHedge is borderline conspiracy theorist nonsense surrounded by occasionally correct financial analysis with a level of accuracy on par with a dart board.

tanderson92 10y ago
The point isn't to be generous, it is to disclose to readers possible conflicts of interest.

kostyk 10y ago

They published an answer to the article. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

mark_l_watson 10y ago

With some reluctance, I follow ZH on Twitter. Like other sites like Russian Times, Haretz, Al Jazera, it is good to be skeptical, but it is also good to break out of the hold that mainstream media has. In the USA, the "news" is so bad that I honestly believe that I get more information from random reading, just a few minutes a day, of sources from many countries on the web than the network "news." I travel a fair amount, and it seems like people in other countries don't have an obsession with "news" that so many of my acquaintances in the USA have. I think that one hour a week is about the maximum amount of time anyone should spend on the news - better to spend the time engaging in business, family and friend time, write a book, volunteer with a charity, community involvement, etc.

snake_plissken 10y ago

I have a love hate relationship with Zerohedge. On the one hand, they can produce some really amazing and compelling content, whether its their own analysis or an analysis of an article from somewhere else on the web. A recent article of memory: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/what-just-happened-oil http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-17/what-just-happened-.... But over the years the site's tone has changed. While they are still dedicated to financial news and insights, they post a lot of survivalist non-sense and it feels more like a far Right wing blog now, advocating you to buy gold in one article that sits below another highlighting proof that the gold market is fixed. I can support a position of reporting on everything and anything, but these inconsistencies and the fact that there is a dearth of articles with viewpoints and analysis from the Left has led me to question their true motives now. They'll also censor you for trying to bring this up in their comments section. A few years ago my account was banned after I called them out for putting up an article stating how some Goldman report was BS, while simultaneously they had up a blog post that used stats from a different Goldman report. I still visit the site everyday. They still occasionally break some headline stories and you still find some really great articles. But generally it's become an insufferable website.

tomp 10y ago
That aritcle actually has an interesting follow up. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-21/something-blowing-oil http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-21/something-blowing-o... Basically... they were right! (You can cite this as an example of quality reporting or as an example of cherry-picking research...)

bernardlunn 10y ago

Used to have really ground breaking investigatve journalism in obscure market structure stuff. Went sensational click bait.

pessimizer 10y ago

Was an interesting site in the beginning, but got stupider and stupider. My guess based on this article is that it's a 419-style strategy; stupid people don't use adblockers as much.

tmaly 10y ago

I stopped reading the site several years back. It has too much of a end of the world doom and gloom view. Yes it does provide a different view against what you see in the mainstream news. You tend to get sucked into this worldview it presents, and you end up getting very little done on your side projects.

jonstokes 10y ago

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site was distorting my judgement. Here is what ZH is good for: they have stuff before anyone else, because they'll print almost anything. For instance, after San Bernardino those guys had details way before other outlets, because they're willing to go to press with just "some guy overheard this on the police scanner and tweeted it". So when you read ZH you see stuff first, but you place a big mental asterisk by it until their scoop trickles up the media food chain and starts to get confirmed as real reporters do actual work on it. I like seeing stuff first, before everyone else gets it, hence my continued regular reading of ZH (again, I keep a 40lb bag of Morton Salt by my desk with the ZH logo on it, though).

ConfuciusSay02 10y ago
Frankly, you should be keeping that salt boulder at the ready for all media you read today. Not just ZH.
dismal2 10y ago
What do you think about the rally now? I too have been following the site since it started. Around 2011 or so I realized I was missing the greatest rally, possibly ever, but I was an unemployed millennial with no money to invest. In the past 2 years or so I'm finally on a good financial footing but I really think this monetary experiment is coming to an end and I dont think I'm thinking that only from reading doom media. Hope I'm wrong, because another downturn would be bad for this country.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  I've realized in my life trying to predict macro is pretty damn hard. Because even if something is irrational, it might be in a whole bunch of very powerful group's interests to keep on propping up the irrational for a very long time. For example, I come from Vancouver. In Vancouver, the 2007 real estate bubble never stopped, wages stayed at their Reno, NV levels. Having Vancouver RE has had about a %30 annualized return for about 15 years. Now an average house is about 1.5-2 million dollars. The housing market is completely irrational, but knowing how it works it might be another 'boom' decade or it might all collapse on itself in the next few years.

known 10y ago

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779 http://www.zerohedge.com/print/502779 is the best from ZH

chatmasta 10y ago

Like many here, I've read ZeroHedge for a few years. I loosely agree with the analysis that the tone has become "conspiratorial," but this argument fails to disambiguate between a "conspiratorial" tone and the intentionally provocative rhetoric of the ZeroHedge authors. They KNOW their content falls under all those labels so derisively ascribed to it, because that is their intention. My reading of the [conspiratorial|far-fetched|proto-facist] content on ZeroHedge is that it's not meant to be literal, but a veneer of SHOCK VALUE that serves two purposes. First, it gets readership due to classic clickbait psychology. Second, its mere existence demonstrably proves ZeroHedge is an "alternative" media site undiluted by editorial filters. This distinguishes it from every mainstream media publication, and that alone makes it worth reading (provided you can find some signal worth your time). The shock value signals to astute readers that ZeroHedge is not a traditional site, and that yes, you SHOULD take everything they say with a grain of salt. But the logical jump from "you should take it with a grain of salt" to "you should ignore it" misses the simple fact that its writers INTEND for the content to be provocative. They WANT you to take it with a grain of salt. Taking things "with a grain of salt" is GOOD for you. It means you are THINKING CRITICALLY. People should be taking everything with a grain of salt. What alarms me most about ZeroHedge is not its content, but the attempted ostracizing of that content by other publications, as if the shock value justifies ignoring it all together. Incidentally, this is the same smear tactic that mainstream media sites are applying to Donald Trump: he says <thing> we find offensive, therefore <every other thing> he says must be invalid. If we applied this logic to all information, there would be no difference of opinion in the world. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, the person yelling "fire" might be the one worth listening to, and we should always question our own beliefs and fear consensus. To quote him directly, they [0] were "the ones shouting fire when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed... [W]ho’s going to decide?" [1] [2] [0] "They" were the socialist party of philadelphia, who opposed the draft of WWI, "on the grounds that military conscription constituted involuntary servitude, which is prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU (thanks to HN commenter in another thread for linking to this today) [2] http://documents.ariadacapo.net/borrowed/2006_11_christopher_hitchens/christopher_hitchens_2006_11_talk_transcript.pdf http://documents.ariadacapo.net/borrowed/2006_11_christopher...

sireat 10y ago

The huge pro Russia bias just became unbearable after a while. Whatever Putin does is consider awesome, whatever Obama does is considered bad. China coverage seemed somewhat more balanced.

sremani 10y ago

Here is ZH's article about the unmasking http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-bloombergs-attempt-unmask-zero-hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-29/full-story-behind-b...

SovietDissident 10y ago

ZH may be early and there may be some separation of the wheat from the chaff that one must do, but their general bearish theme resonates as true based on the data. The BLS numbers are phony. They monkey around with the denominator, so drop-outs from the workforce are not counted. They also count one person losing a good full-time job but gaining multiple part-time jobs as a net positive. Never mind those numbers---all you need to know is that the adult labor force participation rate is at its lowest in about 4 decades.[0] The ratio of average income to home prices is about twice that of the 50s/60s (over 3.3) Also, if unemployment were measured as it was decades earlier, the unemployment number would be much higher. Outside of tech, where tons of money has flowed thanks to the Fed's helicopter money and investors seeking higher returns (as interest rates are ~0), the economy has been doing lousy. Yet all we're told via mainstream sources is that the Fed and Obama saved the day and shutup about it already! As others have noted, this expansion is long-in-the-tooth, at least by historical standards. Companies' inventories are up, which also signals an economic slowdown in the works. After QE1, QE2, QE3, and bond buying totaling $4 trillion (!) of expansion of the monetary supply, we've had a paltry sub-3% GDP growth (0.5% in the first quarter of this year!). A former Fed board member admitted recently that they "front-loaded" the recovery; indeed, it should be noted that this "recovery" is almost a direct result of the Fed's actions regarding monetary expansion. This also explains the fantastic increase in asset values (classic cars, houses, art, stocks, etc.) The Fed is a private cartel. It is the third central bank in the history of the U.S., and was created so the banks would no longer be forced to compete with each other. It is not independent of politics (far from it)---for example, Yellen knows she should raise interest rates, but knows that the Democrats will be thrown out of office if she does before 2016 (see the minuscule 25 basis-point increase that caused huge market turmoil late last year), and a Republican would throw her out the day he was sworn in. Even if you don't believe the "conspiracy", the fact of the matter is that central planning is disastrous, and it is especially disastrous when it comes to the price of currency (i.e., interest rates), as that affects everything else in an advanced economy (especially long-term capital investments). ZH has done a good job keeping us apprised of these developments. They operate under the assumption that the current fiat currently standard cannot survive, and they are right. Of course the timing is virtually impossible, but I (like them) predict a bad recession in the next year or two. Over the longer term, the system will inevitably collapse. [0] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/percentage-workers-labor-pool-falls-year-low/zfLQrKjCyhra95v8PJxWcI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/percentage-w...

Tycho 10y ago

15 posts a day of as much as 1500 words? That's kind of... prodigious.