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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

> Anyway, I am starting to believe these "recession is on the way" articles as the top 1% trying to cause one so they can prevent the slow movement from slave wages to almost livable wages.

It's safe to discard this theory because it's not possible to have that kind of control through "the media" or otherwise. What's accurate is that articles like this get clicks and that's why they come into existence. This article is just a vehicle for advertising, and for every one you can find you can find an article from the same source that states the opposite or some other tangential theory.

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You are assuming the person you replied to thinks there's a cabal or conspiracy. Alternatively, the 1% could be using mass media to project their viewpoint simply because most of the mass media is owned by the 1%.

It's very lazy thinking. People are scared and confused about the world and the easy thing to do is create a nebulous group ("elite", "1%", etc.) to attack as the source of their problems. It's a tale as old as time.

Not to mention the so-called "viewpoint of the 1%" appears to change almost daily, is contradictory, and often times critical of the very 1% that controls "controls the media".

"Mass Media" must also include Twitter, Meta, Google, Apple Music, Spotify, and other sources of content, news, analysis, etc. How many people does the 1% have in on their scheme?

Way better off figuring out how your local representative is taking $5,000 grift payments to expedite some shoddy development that'll collapse in 10 years or cause cancer than to spend time dwelling on such nonsense.

I'm talking about institutions and incentives, and you're accusing me of inventing a boogyman...

Go find your favorite mass media source and you'll see contradictory interviews, contradictory articles, etc. because the point is to get clicks, not drive some cabal's agenda.

I already said there is no cabal...

That too suggests a conspiracy though.

Since the 1% are unlikely to be the ones writing the actual articles, you're going to have to have co-conspirator reporters, writers, editors, publishers. Being coerced by the 1% would in itself be quite a story, ha ha.

Perhaps though you can imagine though a more subtle, undetectable way in which the 1% are able to project their viewpoint via the media that doesn't involve co-conspirators.

Like the person you replied to though, I think Occam's razor suggests instead that these articles get clicks.

It doesn't suggest conspiracy. It suggests organizational structure. Reporters don't get to cover anything they want. They get paid to cover certain topics and are supposed to stay in their lane.

Editors are gatekeepers of what gets printed as part of their job description. Editors get paid more than reporters, and they report to people who get paid more than them. A major type of bias is what doesn't get reported.

The coersion is their paychecks, which isn't a big story.

You are making the same mistake as the person I replied to. It's not a conspiracy. It's institutional.

I don’t think that people pleasing their bosses is such a big conspiracy.

It isn't. It is though when you go from pleasing their bosses to "their 1% oligarch boss says to publish this article that a recession is coming so that workers wages will go down".

Maybe it doesn't have a measurable effect but the other day there was an economist on Bloomberg saying that "we need a recession" that it would be "good thing", I was a bit surprised to hear this sentiment being expressed so explicitly.

Edit: I can't find the video now but I found another recent video expressing a similar idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63aDL326IFA

You do "need a recession".

Without one you cannot reduce inflation not the kind that we have right now. Inflation driven by an external price shock like the Arab oil embargo in 1970s is one example of one that can be alleviated without recession by bringing on supply.

This current state of inflation is direct result of a massive increase in the money supply caused by the government shoveling money out hand over fist. That money was printed. People were being paid without producing any goods. More money same amount of goods equals inflation.

A reduction in gross economic activity is the only way to halt the wage price spiral.

Every law passed by the federal government that increases spending including the IRA is actually making current inflation worse. (While there is something to be said for the IRA making investments that could ease inflation in the future there's absolutely nothing they are doing to help it now but plenty to make it worse.)

The belief that you can reduce inflation without a recession is based on wishful thinking with no examples in history. I studied applied economics in college and the first code I ever wrote outside of the class was inflation simulations in the early 2000s. At that time we thought that loose monetary policy was a thing of the past and we would never have such an irresponsible group of people advising economic policy. But unfortunately we did thanks to an obscure and unproven theory called MMT. It's the string theory of economics in the sense where a bunch of passionate people have dedicated their careers to it and nothing good has ever come of it.

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