There are three kinds of fear beginning with things that deserve genuine caution. There are more than 43,000 different species of spiders and less than 30 are responsible for human deaths. But, do you know which are which?
The second type of fear is that which is imaginary or over-stated. A 2006 study in America found the odds of dying in a plane crash to be one in 11 million. By comparison, the odds of being involved in a shark attack are one in 3.1 million. You may be worrying about something that does not warrant your time.
The third fear that we experience is manufactured. Think of Kris Aquino in Feng Shui or Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. However, we are now part of a grand strategy of manufactured fear to push a political and economic agenda.
Of course, this sounds like some conspiracy theory from the pages of a Dan Brown novel. But things are different today. The populist movement around the globe of people wanting to take back control of their governments and societies from the political elite and establishment is real and undeniable.
The press and media have always been biased just like all of us with particular economic and political views that they have pushed on the public. However, since the 18th century there was always an element of pride in the press that it stood apart from both government and the people. The press exposed notable corruption in government and in the private sector. An anonymous person said: “It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell.”
But no matter the amount of bias in the “hell raising” of a particular agenda, the public received “the news,” which is expected to be factual and unbiased. This is not true in the 21st century.
In the words of Financial Times Associate Editor Wolfgang Münchau, “Britain’s vote to leave the EU has been the most cataclysmic global political event this year so far” and a major blow to the political and economic establishment. Prior to the vote, one international media outfit surveyed 1,200 economists and business people and could not find a single one in favor of Brexit. Fifty-two percent of the voters did not believe that survey was unbiased.
Since then, that same media group has published dozens of gloom-and-doom articles about Brexit. They wrote about the Philippine election too in an editorial “Change the Philippines Doesn’t Need”; “Like Donald Trump, to whom he’s often compared, the Philippines’ apparent president-elect Rodrigo Duterte won over voters with a crude and bombastic persona.” And who is comparing President Duterte to Donald Trump; the same press and media that criticize both.
Voters were told global banks would abandon doing business in London if Brexit passed. Mr. Münchau: “Why should a low-income earner in the UK worry that the City of London will lose its financial passport? These scare stories have added to a generalized loss of confidence in the economics profession and its reputation of independent judgment.”
The people are rejecting what Münchau calls “Project Fear”. But the biggest loser is the credibility of those institutions—government, academia and press/media—that are the most critical to a thinking and free society.
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.