It’s often the little vignettes that show the nature of America’s broken observation-orientation-decision-action loop (the OODA loop). In this case, step one: seeing events. The US media presents a sanitized version of reality, to avoid challenging our preconceptions or spoiling their narrative. Getting America back on track requires fixing this problem.
Today we have a telling little incident from Treasury Secretary Geithner’s trip to pacify our Asian creditors. The European media tells the story. Too bad most Americans did not hear of it.
“Chinese assets are very safe,” Mr Geithner said, answering a question after his opening address at Peking University this morning. His answer was greeted with laughter by the students, who question the wisdom of China spending huge amounts of money on US bonds instead of improving domestic living standards.
“Chinese assets are very safe,” Mr Geithner said in response to a question, although his answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting popular scepticism in China about the wisdom of investing so heavily in the dollar.
In response to a question after his speech, Mr Geithner told the student audience that “Chinese assets are very safe”, drawing loud laughter from his sceptical student audience.
“Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s. His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting scepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.
The New York Times coyly reported the incident.
Following Mr. Geithner’s speech Monday, a student asked the Treasury secretary whether China’s investments in the United States were safe. He responded without hesitation. “Chinese financial assets are very safe,” Mr. Geithner said, eliciting some laughter.
A summary from The Gartman Letter, 3 June 2009:
But the US media avoided any reporting of the laughter that greeted Mr. Geithner’s speech. None of the US television stories reported laughter; none of the US newspapers {other than the NY Times} reported the laughter; none of the US magazines covering the trip reported the laughter — but the laughter was loud; it was palpable and it was very, very real. Simply put, the US fiscal circumstance has become a laughingstock, and we do not say that lightly.
But we’re not alone in remaining ignorant of this episode. The Chinese press didn’t report it either. Of course, China is a tyranny run by the Communist Party. What’s our excuse?
“Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at the prestigious Peking University Monday, where he studied Chinese as a student in the middle 1980s.
Afterword
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To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp interest are:
Posts about America’s mainstream media;
- More post-Fallon overheating: “6 signs the US may be headed for war in Iran”, 18 March 2008
- The media discover info ops, with outrage!, 22 April 2008
- Only our amnesia makes reading the newspapers bearable, 30 April 2008
- Successful info ops, but who are the targets?, 1 May 2008
- The myth of media pessimism about the economy, 13 June 2008
- Keys to interpreting news about the Georgia – Russia fighting, 12 August 2008
- “Elegy for a rubber stamp”, by Lewis Lapham, 26 August 2008
- “The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism”, 23 December 2008
- The media doing what it does best these days, feeding us disinformation, 18 February 2009
- The media rolls over and plays dead for Obama, as it does for all new Presidents, 19 February 2009
- The magic of the mainstream media changes even the plainest words into face powder, 24 April 2009
- The media – a broken component of America’s machinery to observe and understand the world, 2 June 2009
Posts about America’s broken OODA loop:
- News from the Front: America’s military has mastered 4GW!, 2 September 2007
- The two tracks of discussion about the Iraq War, never intersecting, 10 November 2007
- Diagnosing the eagle, chapter I — the housing bust, 6 December 2007
- Another cycle down the Defense Death Spiral, 30 January 2008
- Quote of the day: this is America’s geopolitical strategy in action, 26 February 2008
- What do blogs do for America?, 26 February 2008
- Everything written about the economic crisis overlooks its true nature, 24 February 2009
- The housing crisis allows America to look in the mirror. What do we see?, 9 March 2009
- Globalization and free trade – wonders of a past era, now enemies of America, 16 March 2009
- A note on the green religion, one of the growth industries in America, 17 March 2009
- Poor peak oil research, more evidence of a serious problem with America’s vision, 5 May 2009