Are you ready? If not, get ready. The second half of the year, which includes an election (hopefully), will be saturated with disinformation. Or, if you will, lies, deceit, fake news and sneaky misleading headlines. Truth and facts are so last decades ago. All this disinformation is going to make investing, voting choices and just plain daily news consumption a real challenge. How to offset the fake news onslaught? Good old common sense, a/ka/ thinking.
So where can you get “real” unbiased factual news to enable you to make informed investing, voting and daily life decisions? Here’s the beauty of it; NOWHERE! That’s right. Even if you think you have a trusted news site, the very fact that many of the other sites may be corrupted will cast doubt on your trusted site. Crazy huh? Here’s where your common sense kicks in (or should).
Now, the best thing about plain old common sense is realizing that most of the news sources have a distinct bias. Many governments (ours, China’s, Russia’s, Ukraine’s, etc.) have a strong interest in influencing public perceptions and thoughts. Again, common sense tells you they are up to no good. For example, the government wants everyone to get vaccinated for COVID-19 (to be clear, it was/is a bad virus). They stressed the need to stand six feet away from others. Huh? Or, you must wear a mask coming into a restaurant BUT can take it off when you sit down. Or, if you stand up to go to the restroom you must put the mask back on. Huh? Really? That and other restrictions were disinformation that common sense totally debunks. Still not sure what the agenda for those rules were.
As we swing into the second half of the year you can look forward to a slew of “suspect” information. In other words, question everything and think. Every news and economic number should be taken with a grain of salt. Is everything MSNBC reports right? Is FOX right? Do the mainstream media outlets have bias? Under report? Omit stories? Are government economic numbers actually correct? Or, are they “massaged” for election purposes? On and on the list goes (of course you can always check TikTok, right?).
Common sense (not your own bias) says there is a lot of misinformation floating around.
Propaganda is alive and well, and just like a good trial lawyer does, creates doubt. Lots of doubt. Common sense says all of this is going on and it’s time to not make any major (investing?) decisions and just think.
Bill Taylor is the CEO of Digital Wealth News™ and AI & Finance™ and a 40+ year veteran of the financial markets. You can also ready his weekly musings on BTC, ETH, Gold & S&P500 at The Taylor Market Report.
