HOW'D YOU DO IT, BEN?

  
The stock market is about the only positive thing going right now.

Though many dissidents to prove otherwise will roll out reams of data about declining joblessness, low interest rates and low inflation as far as the myopic can see. 

A while back on the Internet we came across an interview a successful entrepreneur granted a veteran reporter. The guy had been successful more than once, building several companies and selling them.

Reporters are noted for their skepticism, thick skin and supposed toughness. The truth is the only mean streets most of them ever grew up on were in their own imaginations. But we'll leave that for another time.

In interviews like this there's always that one point where the interviewer asks the bottom-line-what's your-secret question. It's sort of a reportorial version of a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point. 

In the late Arthur Miller's American tragedy, "Death of a Salesman," the pathetic, delusional Willy Loman keeps asking his dead brother, Ben, who went into the Brazilian jungle and came out one day a millionaire the same question. 
 
"How'd you do it, Ben?" "How'd you do it?"

The entrepreneur looked the reporter firmly in the eye and replied: "Just be absolutely honest, always tell the truth to everyone."

The story didn't run until weeks later after the reporter admitted he had tried out the advice. His conclusion was quite simple: "So far, far good."

Recently, one economic wag in the WSJ wrote an editorial piece listing all the positives negative folks never focus on. Problem with his list he chose to omit the many qualifiers one needs to make an open, fair discussion of his indicators. Many of them were abstract, sound-good-feel-good sound bites. The crux of his article aimed at the pessimists or the so-called cynical.

But it's not about being pessimistic; it's about being realistic. The MSM today featured a raft of stories on April's so-called shrinking budget deficit numbers. Good news for the economy and likely, so the media ranted, to hold down those dreaded higher interest rates investors lose sleep over.

In short, more fuel for the stock market.

Here's just one example. April numbers usually show a decline in such, a point few in the MSM chose to highlight.

The main problem as we see it is, to use a very kind term, the fudge factor. Governments, politicians, economists, the MSM for some inexplicable reason just don't believe the masses can stand the truth. Talk about your disrespect. That's the ultimate insult to a nation and its people. It's the ultimate elitist-driven slight, an intellectual put-down of major magnitude.

They love to rant and rave about the inequality gap between the have littles and the have lots. But wealth and poverty are hardly the only yard sticks. If you want to set a precedent, you want to evoke change, just start telling the freaking truth to people irrespective of their social, racial, economic or religious make-up.

Throw away your bogus polls, econometric nonsense and your phony, arrogant we-know-best attitudes. Try a big dose of honesty. We know it hurts, but you'll be surprised to discover it frees not kills.