20 March 2013

Precious metal commentary: propaganda, porn or entertainment?

I'm still alive. Haven't blogged for a while due to a lot of work on, primarily on a few Perth Mint Depository related business initiatives as well as trying to get up a research section on our perthmint.com.au site.

One of the more radical blogs I follow is Unqualified Reservations. His recent post on propaganda is a worthwhile read for those interested in social media manipulation and the state of precious metal "commentary".

Below is a quote from a book by Jacques Ellul that Unqualified Reservations refers to. I've edited it and changed a few words to make it read like it applies to precious metals:

Investors are faced with choices and decisions which demand maturity, knowledge, and a range of information which they do not and cannot have. The individual wishes to be conversant with economics and precious metal markets. He wants to form an opinion on them. But in reality he can't. He is caught between his desire and his inability, which he refuses to accept.

For no investor will believe that he is unable to have opinions. Public opinion surveys always reveal that people have opinions even on the most complicated questions, except for a small minority (usually the most informed and those who have reflected most). The majority prefers expressing stupidities to not expressing opinion: this gives them the feeling of participation. For this they need simple thoughts, elementary explanations, a "key" that will permit them to take a position, and even ready-made opinions.

As most investors have the desire and at the same time the incapacity to participate, they are ready to accept a propaganda that will permit them to participate, and which hides their incapacity beneath explanations, judgments, and news, enabling them to satisfy their desire without eliminating their incompetence. The more complex, general, and accelerated precious metal market phenomena become, the more investors feel concerned, the more they want to be involved.

And the investor does not want information, but only value judgments and preconceived positions. Here one must also take into account the investor's laziness, which plays a decisive role in the entire propaganda phenomenon, and the impossibility of transmitting all information fast enough to keep up with developments in the modern world. Besides, the developments are not merely beyond man's intellectual scope; they are also beyond him in volume and intensity; he simply cannot grasp the world's economic and political problems.

Faced with such matters, he feels his weakness, his inconsistency, his lack of effectiveness. He realizes that he depends on decisions over which he has no control, and that realization drives him to despair. Man cannot stay in this situation too long. He needs an ideological veil to cover the harsh reality, some consolation, a raison d'etre, a sense of values. And only propaganda offers him a remedy for a basically intolerable situation.

Following that quote, Unqualified Reservations observes that "the modern propaganda addict (we cannot call him a victim) experiences political authority ... entirely as porn. That is, as a simulation entirely without substance."

Simulation entirely without substance. Exactly what a lot of precious metal commentary is - Propaganda/Porn. Maybe to be less harsh I should say a lot of it is Entertainment (making it amusing to read them ranting against the main stream media when they themselves engage in the same dumbing down).

All very dangerous to your financial health, unless you know you are consuming entertainment. But how to identify it? I'd suggest asking: what do you associate the word "propaganda" with? I'd say Emotion. Propaganda is emotive, angry, fearful, blindly patriotic. Not rational or calm. That is one of its "tells".

23 comments:

  1. Let's see, reading the Usual Suspects in popular PM commentary is “Propaganda/Porn,” “stimulation without substance,” “emotive, angry, fearful:” not trying to elicit a response employing the same techniques you warn against, are you? Tossing a little 'troll-chum' in the water? Oh well, I'll bite. When was it ever the role of commentators in any sphere to be calm, ever-rational, never appealing to emotion, etc.? Is that how you would characterize Mencken or Orwell? You know perfectly well that the reader bears the responsibility for deciding what, or whom, to believe. Someone who blindly believes a calm, reasonable, non-emotional commentator is in exactly the same position as one who blindly believes what you care to describe as PM “Propaganda /Porn.” There are no simple “tells,” getting at the truth is the same hard work it has always been.

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  4. Excellent post Bron. I like reading MM, but he makes FOFOA look like a twitter blogger :)

    I think that if anyone is misled by the propogandists in the PM community it is because they want to be mislead.

    Good to see you posting again.

    Milamber

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  5. Bron, I agree, for most, this is how it is. It's also apparent to me that the average person's buying and selling has little impact on the market as well. The crash JPM and other such initiatives ignores the fact that the top 20% have 85% of the wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States Logic should conclude that the remaining 80% have very little market impact, despite the belief that buying a few hundred ounces will bring down the big futures market shorts.

    Mick.

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  6. Out of the woodwork - no, I'm not trying to elicit a response. Your point about Orwell and commentators not having to be calm is correct, however I would suggest that when we are talking about investments in which people can lose a lot of money, different rules apply. Secondly, if some of the PM commentators actually wrote anywhere near the quality of Orwell then I wouldn't have much of a problem! I can't remember Orwell using ALL CAPS to the extent that Ranting Andy does.

    milamber - yes people do wan to be mislead and I liked MM's post because it puts forward a reason why.

    Mick - agreed, but the crash JPM meme appeals to people as it makes them feel empowered in an economic environment on which they have no control.

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  7. Help. Who are Ranting Andy and MM?

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  8. MM is short for Mencius Moldbug who is the blogger of Unqualified Reservations.

    Ranting Andy is this guy http://blog.milesfranklin.com/sinclairs-1650-call

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  9. Bron, your point is well taken and with your depth of knowledge it amazes me that you are not driven nuts wading about in the metals blogosphere. Maybe you are?

    The point you make can be ascribed to all human activity, not just metals. The limiting factor you cite, that people can lose (or in blogspeak "loose") a lot of money is not a high enough hurdle to expect any sort of behaviour modification. Take health for instance, remember breatharianism? The metals blogosphere is a business, sensationalism sells and is just as prevalent in some of the world's largest news organisations.

    I hope you are able to continue your seemingly Sisyphean efforts without too high a personal cost. Your blog is a great reference for those trying to understand the metals.

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  10. I would say it is impossible for the average person to tell the difference between reality and propaganda. To see the difference you need facts and you can only have facts if you have transparency. Please tell me, where in this world is transparency?
    If you find it let me know

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  11. Thanks for letting me know who they are.

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  12. ...now change a few words to make it apply to central-banking and you arrive at the crux of the issue i.e. why the majority has little or no control over a system which requires, in order to survive, the complicit acceptance and participation of the very people it has been engineered to control - you.

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  13. There is only one way out:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP29vOogWvw

    Nice, thank you.
    I suppose your article could be applied in few other areas :o)

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  14. Here at my blog there is 0 propaganda and 100% pure data.
    Best quality.

    http://anotherfreegoldblog.blogspot.fi/2013/04/fg-wikileaks-documents-mortymer-and-jeff.html

    There is so much about the past we must explore to know where we are.

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  15. Good stuff Mortymer. I've passed that link to Nick at sharelynx.com hopefully he will send it to his subscriber base and you'll get some hits.

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  16. Sorry Bron but you got me wrong I am in this not for hits. There is zero commerce on my blog.

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  17. Understand, just because you're not making money doesn't mean your material shouldn't get wider distribution.

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  18. Bron,

    Can you comment on the crash in gold, please? Anyone know how it happened, what triggered the panic selling?

    Thanks.

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  19. Is there a pick up in people buying and/or selling bullion at the Perth Mint?

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  20. Have to mention, Bron, that I am exceedingly disappointed in you. The biggest week for many in the gold market and not a single post from you. Not a single insight into the selloff or the rumours of big Eastern buying. You seem to have plenty of time to post on other sites such as Screwtape Files and MacroBusiness to promote your image but not a squeak to your readership here. Sad, yet insightful.

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  21. The comments on other blogs are few and short because I don't have plenty of time. As to the motivation to promote, well there is no point doing that if your promotions direct people to a blog with no content (haven't posted on the corporate blog either BTW).

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  22. Yeah, come on Bron.

    What do you think this is? A free blog that people choose to visit of their own volition?

    How rude you are!

    Milamber

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  23. Hi
    Thank you so much for giving us such kind of handy content which will be most useful to me as well.... I will follow your blog always. Thanks!!!

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