What is Digg?316 Comments
- Shiftgood, on 03/05/2009, -13/+162The least common thing is common sense.
-Frank Lloyd Wright - kp998, on 03/05/2009, -23/+154Great point for all the fools that use this straw man.
- teebird, on 03/06/2009, -10/+109Any half-smart first year grad student in social science or journalism is expected to know that correlation isn't causality. Is John Stewart the only member of the Fourth Estate who hasn't forgotten that lesson?
- bjenidles, on 03/05/2009, -9/+76Canadian mirror: http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-wi ...
- sjbdallas, on 03/06/2009, -21/+80I seem to remember the daily show doing a similar story where they show the dow dropping while bush was doing a speech. I can't find it though.
- Zippo, on 03/06/2009, -11/+58Man, it's sad that comedians have a better grasp of the economy and politics than most reporters.
- dagnabbit, on 03/06/2009, -14/+60This is something that doesn't really necessitate de-bunking, except for the dittohead douchebags who repeat GOP talking points without understanding what they're talking about in the first place.
Everybody (84%)knows Obama inherited this mess. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493021/ - inactive, on 03/05/2009, -14/+54There's this thing called volume....try turning it up, *****.
- aladrin, on 03/06/2009, -2/+34Sooo... Even thought they tend to follow the same trend, 1 is a good indicator and the other is not?
- savvvy, on 03/06/2009, -0/+30How about you read the header and see that its Comedy Central's blog?
- deagleman, on 03/06/2009, -20/+50Stewart is sorta right. The DOW is technically a horrible gauge for the economy and for political policy. Now the S&P 500 (500 companies average better than 30) however is a different story and this thing has been hurting just as bad. Did the S&P drop due to policies of the Obama administration? Maybe.... Maybe not. People still debate the Great Depression so I doubt well have an answer for this one anytime soon...
- tuce63, on 03/06/2009, -23/+46Of course he does. He has an agenda. I think he's right on this one, but I wonder if he would rush to any Republican's defense had the tables been turned? As sbjdallas was saying there WAS a clip where they implied the DJIA was dropping because of Bush's speak. I realize it's a comedy show, but so many people take it as their only new source.
- aserer511, on 03/06/2009, -5/+27this is ***** because you KNOW, I mean KNOW he wouldn't be saying this if Bush were presiding over a 6500 dow
- inactive, on 03/06/2009, -10/+30No, it was ***** moronic when people blamed the economy on Bush. I was very much opposed to Bush, and even I thought it was ***** moronic. I like how you conservatives used to agree with me on this point until Obama took office. Hell, I used to agree with conservatives on a lot of points, with regard to stupid, irrelevant attacks on Bush, but apparently now that we have a new president, none of that matters anymore. ***** you, you goddamn two-faced conservatives.
- cherrysweet00, on 03/06/2009, -1/+21The Dow only thinks about itself.
- Galbrezu, on 03/06/2009, -0/+19I was unaware that the site with the Comedy Central brand everywhere was not a Comedy Central site.
- P522, on 03/06/2009, -2/+21Well I for one put my faith in those panicky young men on the trading floor. They're not wildly fluctuating between fear and confidence for nothing! /sarcasm
- MacEnvy, on 03/06/2009, -5/+22The S&P is still just a narrow indicator of a group of corporations' market capitalization. It's not necessary reflective of the state of the economy as a whole.
- MacEnvy, on 03/06/2009, -1/+18@ociris
The *market* reaction, by definition, yes. The *economy's* reaction, absolutely not. I don't give a flying ***** about the market when the economy as a whole is crashing.
Market indexes measure a particular portion of the open stock market. They DO NOT measure the economy. It's stupid to make the claim that it means anything outside the very narrow world of market speculation at this point, since the numbers are entirely based on speculative reactions by a very small group of traders. Traders, by the way, who do not have the best interests of the country at heart. - dagnabbit, on 03/06/2009, -3/+20That's gold, Jerry, gold!
- Jericho6, on 03/06/2009, -6/+21I did like this segment, although I get the feel every Daily Show and Colbert Report segment is showing up on the Front Page these days.
Although if another Titantic occurs, I guess I should hit the stock market ;) - banderwocky, on 03/06/2009, -6/+21Wow, I didn't know Regans election helped dump the DOW back the day!!
- smotpoker, on 03/06/2009, -2/+15It is a straw man. It's like using a vegan commune poll to prove american's support banning all animal products. Those who invest in the stock market or work on wall street do not represent a very diverse sampling of the american people. In fact, it primarily represents/reflects the interests of people who prosper from exploiting the work of others rather than providing any real good or service.
- bghs2003, on 03/06/2009, -3/+15The Dow and the economy as a whole isn't the only measure of presidential success but it is a part of it, just like approval rating. After all, post 9/11 Bush’s approval rating was though the roof for months, but in hindsight we know his actual performance during that time was not partucularly exceptional.
- wendelgee2, on 03/06/2009, -3/+15Can people please stop using this "but they did it to Bush" argument, until we actually see the context? Please?
Thanks. - mlvassallo, on 03/06/2009, -3/+15I don't understand how less than 3 months is enough time for some of you to close your eyes and ears towards the Obama Administration's economic plan.
The only thing I can guess is that those of you with your eyes and ears closed have had them that way since inauguration. - smacksaw, on 03/06/2009, -5/+17Cable news is really making us dumber.
- jeffstevens199, on 03/06/2009, -14/+25TDS is on fire this week!
Did anyone see this video -
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?vide ... - wreckosaurus, on 03/06/2009, -6/+17http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/4869/picture1otc. ...
Maybe this will help clarify things. The first point is the peak of the stock market, the second point is where Obama was inaugurated. As can be seen here, the recession and drop in stocks actually began BEFORE Obama took office, hard to believe, but it's true.
Personally, I can't believe Obama hasn't fixed the worst recession in a century in the month and a half he's been in office. What is he waiting for? How long does it take to fix a global economic meltdown? - inactive, on 03/06/2009, -16/+27"President Barack Obama gave his own version of that response this week, declaring in response to a reporter's question: "You know, the stock market is sort of like a tracking poll in politics." - Wall Street Journal
So, Obama disagrees with Jon Stewart? - requiem3, on 03/06/2009, -0/+11This is just common sense, you don't even need to have gone to college to understand this. Just realize that the economy is a lot more complex than any single action -> reaction process, especially when it comes to the stock market.
- Sogui, on 03/06/2009, -8/+19Edit: I'm attacking the Daily Show but defending Obama here so you might actually have to read this before you auto-bury/digg me.
Not an economist but the Daily Show was definitely unfair towards the DOW. The DJIA may only be a sample of companies and how investor's "feel" about them, but it's very similar to how you can get a good feel for millions of American's votes/opinions just by surveying 1,000 of them.
Sure it's going to have its shortcomings, but often the big drops you see on significant Obama days were at least somewhat associated with Obama's plans. To pretend that bills and promises made by Obama that are trillions of dollars in scale and involve nearly every sector of the economy in their scope would NOT have a cause-effect relationship with the Dow would just be playing ignorant.
The Dow is also far more useful than TDS would suggest, there is a strong correlation between the Dow and several other key financial measures... and what makes the Dow so useful is that it LEADS these measures. You might not know some of these statistics until months or years after the damage is done, but if you follow the Dow you can make fairly accurate assumptions about them, and where the economy as a whole is headed.
Furthermore, at least at a theoretical level, the Dow would be better to analyze financial decisions made by a president than simple public opinion. Jon Stewart criticized the Dow for being too short-sighted and small in scope to give any reasonable idea of how a president is performing, but then he goes on to cite public approval ratings... which consist of roughly 1,000 Americans... 99.9% of whom probably have no financial or economic education who are asked how they "feel" about a president's performance... which is far more short-sighted and narrow in scope than any market index you could look at.
In the Daily Show's defense though, for all the misleading stuff they threw out there... the basic point they were making is correct.
Here's my conclusion: Neither public opinion nor the DJIA is going to give you an accurate idea of how a president is performing. Hell some Presidential act from decades ago are still making waves in today's world... it would be almost impossible for anyone to guess how a president is "doing" the same day or week that he forms a new initiative or signs a new bill into law. Things like PO polls and the DJIA are simply somewhat-accurate samples of how a given segment of the population feels about something. Those polls suggest that the average American thinks Obama is "doing a good job" and that the average investor "was not pleased with the direction of the economy on a given day". One is great for estimating how much political capital that a President can cash in with Congress and the other is still an important financial barometer, but neither should be used as a "report card" to judge the President's actions, that's just silly. - CyclonusRIP, on 03/06/2009, -6/+17Ya using historical facts to make people look silly is so pro Obama.
- MacEnvy, on 03/06/2009, -3/+13Of course we saw it, it was on the front page twice yesterday, and each one made it to the Top in 24 page.
- oxdeltaxo, on 03/06/2009, -4/+14Dugg the article purely for the use of *****.
- ElTomacco, on 03/06/2009, -0/+10LOL, they let me watch the AD but not the actual video!
- morcheeba, on 03/06/2009, -0/+10Did you see him tear in to obama about troop withdraws? Obviously you didn't. He showed how bush's withdraw speech matched up almost word-for-word with obama's.
- jeffstevens199, on 03/06/2009, -7/+17haha...nice DickFace!
yeah this video sounds fine... - mwalker05, on 03/06/2009, -5/+14i didnt see him offer any support to obama. he was simply mocking the retardedness of news networks for trying to use the dow as a means of measurement when polling shows they are full of *****.
- shylove, on 03/06/2009, -1/+10One does not need a dowing rod to figure out that running companies on short term profit rather than long term planning and responsible development is driving our economy insane.
- Koushiro, on 03/07/2009, -1/+10Actually a lot of us think he's a comedian.
They make jokes based on what the news networks do. - NevaDieENT, on 03/06/2009, -2/+11What?! Correlation does not equal causation?
- jackjkaplan, on 03/06/2009, -5/+14Wonder what an actual economist has to say about it?
- hblask, on 03/06/2009, -8/+17The Dow does not measure politics, it measures the economy. And people who make their living by predicting the economy have voted with their feet that every policy Obama has proposed is terrible for the economy. And by the way, it started during Bush when the bailouts started. Even then, every bailout meant more bad news for stock. The lesson should not be Bush/Obama = good/bad in whatever permutation you favor; the lesson is that massive deficit spending is bad for the economy, whether it is Bush or Obama doing it.
And by the way, his strawman about it being "just 30 stocks" is a bit silly, as the entire market is down similar amounts.
Even though his understanding of politics is thin, Stewart is still hilarious. - Drazzim12, on 03/06/2009, -0/+9http://tinyurl.com/aglpl5
tyho: "That was beautiful. Right on John"
Pot calling the kettle black, perhaps? - LiquidIse, on 03/06/2009, -6/+15Wait... that was supposed to be a debunking? 2 or 3 mediocre counter examples over the last nearly 97 years??
Maybe not approval rating, but it's not a new thing, nor does it take a genius to realize, that watching the markets' reaction to a speech is a fairly good estimate at the financial sectors feelings toward new or suggested policy changes... - gfryesc, on 03/06/2009, -9/+17I'm debunking The Daily Show as a news source. Get your heads out of your asses, guys. He's a comedian, always has been.
- JFallon126, on 03/06/2009, -1/+9Correlation isn't causation.
There fixed it for you. - dsmx, on 03/06/2009, -2/+10Comedians unlike reporters have to be fairly intelligent.
- LastVisibleDog, on 03/06/2009, -9/+17Jon Stewart was hip when he had the "damn the man" "power to the people" vibe going after the people in power in the government now he is propping up the people in power in the government. Now that Jon Stewart is part of the Obama Ministry of Propaganda and Jon carries the Obama White House's water....this is not funny any more - Jon Stewart as White House apologist
This is sick and scary in an Orwellian way.... -
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