Che Guevara, Musk and 0%. Whose story do you listen to?

| 02-09-2016 | Pieter de Kiewit |

In 2015 the Dutch writer Joris Luyendijk published his book “Dit kan niet waar zijn” about the workings of financial markets. An interesting read for all treasuryXL followers and by now, quite well-known. In my perception one of his earlier works is even better. “Het zijn net mensen” describes the public opinion about the situation in the Middle East and how we are all influenced by governments, media and our cultural backgrounds. For me this was a true eye-opener.

I remembered the book during my recent vacation in Ireland. Apparently Che Guevara has Irish roots, his forefathers are from Galway. Locally he is portrayed as a revolutionary hero. During this vacation I saw an US television series in which he was described as a terrorist….

Recently our Dutch media describe the negative interest and quantitative easing as disastrous. I do not read Italian, Greek or Spanish newspapers but can imagine they write different stories. And today Elon Musk is in the news. Tesla, the company he founded, is buying one of his other companies Solarcity, where two of his cousins are in the board. He did not mention this transaction when, a few months ago, Tesla sold stock worth $1.4 billion. One has to play by the rules… Companies that are making the world a better place by developing environmentally technology should be stimulated in their actions and Musk is creating advancement. Should this part be included in the articles?

The media do not offer a balanced story, the media consumers (read: we) do not have the time or patience to listen to nuance. Should they/we?

Pieter de Kiewit

PS Without broadcasting an opinion, how can it be that almost 100% of the Dutch think Trump is unacceptable as a president of the US and a substantial portion of US citizens consider him their next president? What media do we listen to?

 

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit
Owner Treasurer Search