STREET DOGS
MICHEL PIREU: The ultimate charade
Howard Beale views television as a circus, a carnival, a troupe of acrobats, storytellers, lion tamers, and football players, writes Michel Pireu
Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth … Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real truth. — Howard Beale in Network. Talking about long-term ideas, opportunities and trends as well as substantive issues related to the markets might actually help people, but the purveyors of business television largely assume that immediacy and urgency are necessary to capture viewers — and they may be right about that. But it’s become a charade. The entire conceit is ridiculous because the "news" being reacted to is almost always functionally irrelevant to any meaningful investment process. Yet CNBC and its ilk roll with the charade that something urgent must be reported. Th...
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