Since I’ve made the conscious decision to choose knowledge over news, my quality of life has been drastically improved.
I’m no longer constantly exposed to fear mongering, misleading narratives, opinions disguised as facts, and negativity.
Instead, I’m able to spend much more time and energy on bettering myself. There’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t learn something new or somehow improve myself.
Being retired in my early 30s and living in Thailand, as I lay out in 5 Steps To Retire In 5 Years, has left me largely ignorant to US media.
However, I don’t live under a rock.
I still see occasional headlines, much to my chagrin. As an investor in more than 100 different businesses, simply keeping abreast of business updates means I end up getting some news exposure.
And one thing I’ve taken notice of somewhat recently is the fact that a lot of content being pumped out of mainstream media is apparently designed for a singular purpose.
Mainstream media is trying to keep you poor.
I think I’ve always known this. But I’ve been given additional perspective now that I’ve limited my exposure to the news cycle.
Being away from it, no longer immersed in it, gives me a 30,000-foot view.
Seeing the big picture in this way, I’ve concluded that mainstream media is obviously intent on keeping Americans poor.
I’m going to tell you how they’re doing this, why they’re doing it, and how you can avoid this trap.
How Mainstream Media Is Keeping You Poor
Their strategy is quite simple.
Pump out story after story that plays to your victim card. Even if the stories aren’t based on statistical facts.
In fact, it’s better when they’re not based on statistical facts.
Mainstream media wants to make you think you’re a “have not”, while simultaneously bashing the “haves”.
Make you feel poor because everyone else is apparently “poor”.
If everyone is struggling, you must therefore be struggling too.
You already know what I’m talking about.
The endless stories about people drowning in debt. The headlines that demonize capitalism. Criticism of evil “shareholders”. Nonstop coverage of wealth inequality.
Let’s totally forget that when criticizing evil “shareholders”, the mainstream media is actually criticizing the majority of Americans – anyone who buys a fund in their plain vanilla 401(k) from their job is a… drum roll, please… shareholder. Mind. Blown.
If everyone is so poor, and if income doesn’t move up, someone should explain why the the 2017 real median income of family households increased 1.4 percent from 2016 – up to a monstrous to $77,713!
Moreover, the poverty rate in the US for 2017 was 12.3%, down from 12.7% in 2016. That means an even smaller minority of Americans are “poor” now than before.
There is some volatility over shorter periods of time, sure, but real median personal income in the US increases significantly from one generation to the next.
I was born in 1982. Real median personal income back then was around $22,000. It’s now over $31,000, according to FRED. That’s a 40%+ move up just in my lifetime. And I’m not even old. Not yet.
Americans are wealthier than ever. America is richer than almost any civilization to ever exist on the planet. Earning just that $31,000 per year puts you in the top ~1% of the entire world.
Capitalism is evil?
Totally false.
But people have free will. And it’s a free market. Capitalism doesn’t force you to spend your money unwisely. Likewise, it doesn’t force you to save and invest your money. It’s up to you.
You can buy a too-expensive car. You’re free to spend $100,000 on a liberal arts degree. A McMansion doesn’t know or care who’s buying it. Nobody will stop you from lighting money on fire.
But the ability to grow your income and wealth within a free-market system is almost limitless.
If you waste your money on useless crap instead of investing it, you’ll see your wealth gap widen between yourself and those who are smarter with their money. It’s an inevitability. That’s the nature of compounding, folks.
Warren Buffett once said this:
The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.
Completely true.
If I had to add to this, I’d say that capitalism is a device for transferring wealth from those who make unwise choices with money to those who make wise choices with money.
I once made extremely poor choices with my money. I was broke as a result.
Then I started making better choices with money. And I became wealthier and freer as a result.
It’s not rocket science.
There’s no boogeyman out there. It largely comes down to choices and consequences. It’s about personal accountability.
But the media would have you believe otherwise.
They want you to feel like a victim. A poor one, at that.
It’s “the system” keeping your poor. (But mainstream media isn’t part of “the system”. Of course not…)
The boogeyman is taking advantage of you.
Just tune in every hour to hear more about it!
It’s easier and more lucrative to focus on the negativity and play to people’s fears than it is to spread positivity and empower people.
It’s easier to blame others than it is to step up and admit that maybe, just maybe, the person in the mirror is to blame for their troubles.
Perhaps my biggest gripe with all of this is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Say something enough, even if it’s not true, and you run the risk of making it true.
Truth can’t get in the way of a good story. False narratives built on fear-mongering headlines that suck in readers and viewers are preferable to a feel-good story about what’s really going on. Hammer a false narrative home enough, and one starts to wonder what’s truth. Politicians are particularly adept at this.
A hyper-focus on anecdotes, feelings, opinions, and convenient narratives over hard facts is something that is truly wrong with the world.
It’s the same thing with economic recessions. If mainstream media keeps saying a recession is coming, enough people might believe that and actually lead themselves right into one (by lowering spending, reducing investment, etc.). Professor Robert Shiller has talked about this phenomenon, calling it “narrative economics”.
If you tell people enough times that they’re victims, they’ll eventually start to believe it.
And if you start to believe that and want a shoulder to cry on, mainstream media is unsurprisingly all too happy to provide it.
Why Mainstream Media Is Keeping Your Poor
It’s easy to see what they’re doing.
The more difficult thing to figure out might be, why they’re doing it.
But this is also a very simple strategy.
Mainstream media wants to keep you a poor victim so that you continue to need them.
It’s old-school divide and conquer, using hyperbolic propaganda as fuel for the fire.
Pit people against one another. If you’re a “have not”, you need the mainstream media to feed you the narrative and provide you that shoulder to cry on.
It’s all about control.
If everyone were “haves”, the current business model of mainstream media would be far less in demand at best, and it would cease to exist at worst. They’d have no control over people.
Just look at me as an example.
I don’t need mainstream media. Couldn’t care less for it. Don’t watch or read it. The headlines are so blatantly and completely false and tilted toward creating a powerless populace, I’d be silly to pay attention to it.
Paying attention to mainstream media hyperbole would only detract from what I’m doing in my life, by reducing the available resources I have to commit toward self-improvement, wealth building, and knowledge gathering.
I’ve become my best financial, mental, and physical self when I’ve spent the least amount of time consuming mass media.
And that’s exactly the point, people.
If you’re paying mainstream media time and attention, you’re not paying attention and time to that which will actually put you on track for greater success across all aspects of your life.
This is what they want.
Turning everyone into an empowered, wealthy person taking advantage of the free-market system makes for a very limited mainstream media audience.
Who’s going to eat the pile of lies when everyone is exposed to the truth? Who’s going to sit around and give in to fear mongering when they’re too busy building their wealth, doing big things, and enjoying their lives?
Precisely.
How To Avoid This Trap
So if we know what mainstream media is doing, and why they’re doing it, we should make it our mission to avoid this trap.
How do we go about doing this?
Again, it’s a very simple strategy.
Just. Tune. Out.
Ignore it. Ignore the noise. Don’t pay any mind to mainstream media.
Instead, educate yourself. Work hard on your endeavors. Be wise with your time and capital, and take advantage of the incredible system of capitalism. Make it your mission every single day to go to bed smarter, better, richer, and more successful than you woke up.
You won’t have any time for a victim mentality and defeatist attitude when you’re too busy empowering yourself and winning across almost every aspect of life. You certainly won’t feel poor when you’re rich.
There’s plenty of content out there that has nothing to do with the 24/7 news cycle.
Try out some books. Long-form articles from like-minded writers. Research papers. Annual reports. Documentaries.
Anything but tuning into some talking head who’s trying to make you feel poor and helpless.
Look, I’m not saying all mainstream media behaves this way.
I’ll even do interviews with certain outlets when I feel like they’re genuinely trying to push a more balanced narrative.
But the bulk of mainstream outlets are doing exactly what I’m laying out here. They know they’re doing it. And they’re profiting from divisiveness and negativity. Don’t feed into that.
Conclusion
We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
I know exactly how I like to use that limited time.
It’s up to you what you do with yours.
But I can tell you that if you devote a measurable amount of your resources to tuning into the hyperbolic and negative headlines that mainstream media pumps out, it’s almost certainly going to work against everything that will actually make you a happier, wealthier, freer, smarter, and more successful person.
So tune out mainstream media.
And tune into educating yourself, working hard, taking advantage of your opportunities, building your wealth, and becoming the exact type of person that mainstream media wants to crucify and use as an example for all of their “victims” out there.
What do you think? Is mainstream media trying to keep people poor? Why or why not?
Thanks for reading.
P.S. If you’re ready to educate yourself and become wealthier and more successful, check out some fantastic tools and services I personally used on my way to becoming financially free at 33!
Great article, Jason. I would say that the media wants to keep people consuming heavily (got to sell advertising) so the way to do that is to play to fear and insecurity.
Talking to my family back in the USA, they mention it is far harder to tune out than for someone like you and me living abroad. And as you said that even if you were able to retire in the USA you wouldn’t want to so maybe there is truth to that.
Best wishes,
Mike
Mike,
Thanks!
Yeah, I agree it’s a bit harder in the States. But far from impossible. It’s just like anything else. You have to put in the effort toward a better life. I didn’t have cable and pretty much avoided all media while I still lived there. But it’s easier now because it’s just totally gone. I barely get a whiff, other than updates about the businesses I’m invested in.
Regardless of finances, I wouldn’t want to live in the States. It’s partly because of the environment over there. This intense focus on opinions and feelings over facts is something that I find seriously troubling. The way the media and politicians cater to that is very unfortunate.
Cheers!
Great post Jason as usual.
I think it is their job to make you watch their channels all the time. Because they need to make money too. It is their profession.
If you recall exactly one year go, media were screaming about rising bond yields and advising their viewers to dump their rate sensitive stocks. Now, they are screaming about falling bond yields, recession and so on and advising you to buy same stocks at higher price.
If you listen and make decisions, then you might have 20% less asserts than now.
I occasionally watch TVs and read news (because of Warrant Buffet and a few others interviews), but make decisions based on my long-term goals and risk tolerance.
Best Regards,
FJ,
Thanks a lot!
Yeah, I think you’re referring to financial media, like CNBC. I’m talking about mainstream media in general. Mainstream media is trying to make you think that things are much worse than they are, because that’s when you need them the most. You see that in the financial space, too. But it’s much more extreme and problematic in broader media, in my view.
Best wishes!
Agreed, but it is just not the “mainstream” media that is doing this but all kinds of media, and of course but not least “social” media. There is a lot negativity and whining about yes absolutely everything. And if you, as YOU did above even link to Steven Pinker, Rosling or any other fact based person you are accused of being “a bit positive and refusing the reality”. As if.. I feel sorry for the people who are 100% set to believe that everything is crap and it will just get worse.
It is also the average Joe who spend his or her time polluting the internetwebs with foul language, conspiracy theories and all sorts of negativity that also fuels this epidemic of that everything that is written on the internet is true. It is not..
It is a strange thing, that people insist on believing things that are not true. Our economy for once, just yesterday I read a comment on an economy blog that “the west economies are fucked and have been for some time”. I didn´t bother to comment since it was probably just a troll.. Looking at just ye olde USA unemployment is lowest in 50 years..
Afraid to get killed by terrorist? Well you should worry about killing yourself or cancer instead 🙂
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-in-USA-vs.-media-coverage.png
I could write about this all day, but gonna end with this one:
https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
🙂
Andreas,
Well, I mean mainstream media to encapsulate pretty much all large-scale media. Social media is driven by the aggregate of society, although it does tell you a lot about the mentality of most people. Indeed, it’s probably because most people are naturally attracted to (like bugs to light) negativity, drama, hyperbole, and opinions that the media puts out what they put out.
Said another way, I don’t particularly think that some kind of facts-based, or even optimistic, news program would do very well. People are drawn to negativity for some reason. Mainstream media is just plugging into (and profiting from) that zeitgeist. I’ve even seen this in the content I put out, where some kind of personal drama (especially the negative kind) draws way more eyeballs than some kind of facts-based information that’s designed to improve quality of life.
Wrapping it up, the best thing to do is what I noted in the article. It’s certainly worked for me, if my physical, mental, and financial condition is any proof. 🙂
Best regards.
Jason,
“You can buy a too-expensive car. You’re free to spend $100,000 on a liberal arts degree. A McMansion doesn’t know or care who’s buying it. Nobody will stop you from lighting money on fire.”
I say stuff like that a lot, typically with cruder language. I still have an iPhone 5c – and it was my wife’s old phone. I ride the same bike I got in college. Funny how the little things, the ones everyone thinks don’t matter, really do…
– Gremlin
DG,
Right. Free will within a free-market system. The problem arises when people want to make unwise choices without suffering consequences. The media is all to happy to provide that shoulder to cry on and make you feel like you’re a victim of “the system” rather than your own set of choices.
Best wishes!
I didn’t realize how bad things really are until I watched the democratic debate tonight, Now I know. The good news is I just have to vote for the right one and they will fix everything. What a wonderful system we have. 😀
TG,
I guess I was too busy improving and enjoying my life to tune into a time waster like that. If I wanted to be educated about policy or a candidate’s position, I’d rather just go right to their platform and do the research.
Cheers.
Well said. But the masses like to feel like they need to be made whole. Housing crisis, I remember college professors claiming they were victims and other financial professionals as well. I see media adds suggesting I work till 90 even though mortality rates are in the low 80s, quality of life less. I had co-workers spending 50K on cars then looking at me with envy because over 25 years I saved my money and now I am in a very nice place. Yes it is crazy that we are talking about forgiving student debt. In my early 50s work is optional because I planned but for so me reason I am supposed to feel guilty. Doesn’t make sense.
David,
“But the masses like to feel like they need to be made whole.”
Right. And instead of going out there and making themselves whole through positive action, they rely on others to give them a shoulder to cry on. This creates a vicious circle. If you want to feel like a victim, the mainstream media is all too happy to pander.
I could cry victim. I’ve had a tough go of it in life. Grew up in a ghetto, lost my parents, etc. I used to watch my mom smoke crack while I watched cartoons. But I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor.
Best regards.
Hi Jason,
I´m divided in this question. Yes, the media is always crying, they write what we should believe and they always try to influence us. So they are guilty, but they are doing only their job. I have never seen a terrorist in real live when he was doing something bad. The chance that I will get the experience is not that high. Today I saw a study that millions are dying because of inproper medical treatment, but nothing really deeper. But on the other hand everyone knows that people are dying in a hospital about this. I think you don´t care much if you are dying if it is a failure or normal treatment, you are simple dead :). Two days ago there was an article that a high percentage of people are frightened to go into hospital (surprise, surprise). OK, I have now the information, but is there anything what I can change?
And now comes the point where I´m divided. It´s up to you to take this serious, ignore it or laugh on it. You as a person is the main actor believing, that investing in shares is bad, that you have immediatly acting in this and that is superimportant, to buy car Z or a house because of the increasing rents must be done now. Or that you save 10 $ when you buy right now a special good, but in real live you only spend money and save nothing. And yes, a lot of people get influenced from it and they don´t take their time to think, that 99% is interest driven and/or bullshit. Same for political topics from every party you can imagine: They want to sell their interests to vote them and they try to influence you to do this, even it doesn´t have much impact to your live. In USA you have two major partys, in Germany you have much more different ones, which is not better at all.
At the moment we have a lot of climate activists and they want to explain the world, that we have to act immediatly without thinking, if a action is reasonable or not. So a famous German left declining party is announcing over the media that we need a special tax for SUVs, we can´t live without a CO2 tax and they are talking every two weeks about a new tax to save the world and especially Germany. Sorry, I can´t take that too serious. Bur many do. So the main problem sits between your ears and not in front of you of the influencing screaming media. They are a part of the problem, but the main problem is yourself.
But there is nothing major what someone can do against it despite to ignore it. You can´t ignore it by 100%, because there are lot of people outside who ant to talk about topics they see in the news. So I read a bit the main press but I don´t really care if I have personally have to do this or that. I simple live my life, don´t care about terrorists, or that investing in shares is bad or that there are some politicians or activists forcing things I´m not interested in. The best message this week was, that they found a planet with water and nice temperatures outside of our solar system. The bad on it is, that it is 110 lightyears away. Nice to know, but the chance that the mankind will reach this planet is today and the next 100 years zero. Even the next 1.000 years it is quite unpossible to visit this planet. So: Where is the importance?
Regards Oliver
Oliver,
We’re in agreement. I always think about what’s within my “circle of control”. The hyperbole that the media likes to throw around is not within my circle of control. But I can control what I tune into.
You’re absolutely right in the sense that we can’t ignore it 100%. Like I noted in the article, even I get a bit of noise due to the fact that I’m a businessman. I can’t totally shut it off. But I can tell you that you can get pretty close to 100%. Much closer than you might think. And much closer than most people get, since so many people are constantly tuning into the noisy opinions and hyperbole instead of doing hard research on facts and bettering their lives.
Cheers!
Technology solved my mass media problem.
Around half a year ago, my LNB signal detector on the satellite dish broke down..
After a few weeks I noticed, that I didn´t even miss it- so it stays unrepaired until further notice 🙂
Still we get mainstream media coverage here and there, but on a vastly lower level.
Sometimes it is even interesting. as a contrarian indicator:
If they claim the end of the world is near-> Time to SELL e.g. Goldmines , not buy them, because everybody else is buying in panic..
But it may be a nice time to pick up some interesting conventional shares in these scenarios on the other hand – just as in the classic Rothschild quote: “Buy when blood is running in the streets”.
Buffet for sure doesn´t sell Coca Cola, only because Trump has tweeted something – but it is what the media reports all about and they always try to link stock market movements to this political noise.
It is very rare, that even financial channels talk about other things than politics,Trump, climate change, central banks or China as the root cause for price volatility.
When was the last time we heard something like: “Apple is down 3% today, although nothing really happened. Maybe stochastics was getting overbought lately and some HFT algo coder at JPMorgan fired up his new absorption algorithm.” ?
No it is always about China, Trump etc.
Removing this information noise is not that difficult. We just have to do it.
SC,
“Removing this information noise is not that difficult. We just have to do it.”
Agreed 100%. I noted that in an earlier comment. It’s just like anything else. You have to commit to action if you want to improve your life. And removing most mainstream media from your life would be an improvement.
I admit that living abroad makes it easier for me, but I didn’t have cable TV back when I still in the States. Other than some OTA channel exposure, I rarely watched anything from mainstream media. Quite easy to avoid it. It’s not rocket science.
Best wishes!
So true. Extremely insightful article.
Eg,
Thank you. Hope you enjoyed it! 🙂
Cheers.
Great article, Jason. I think there are even more nefarious reasons for why the mainstream media promotes poverty and victimhood, but the litany of reasons you give should be motivation enough to get people away from mainstream media.
Mysticaltyger,
Too many cons, too few pros. I’d rather improve my mind, body, and wallet than bother with mainstream media. 🙂
Best regards.
By default I apply Hanlon’s Razor:
> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I am not convinced that there is a big evil set of overlords deciding to do these evil things. I think those that work in the newsrooms are just as addicted to bad news as anyone else.
Alistair,
Sure. Ignorance is bliss. That can be said for both those doing the reporting and those consuming the reports.
But I’ve already stated my case on why I think there’s a bit more to it than that. To believe that the news cycle has just magically manifested into what it currently is, might be a great case of ignorance in and of itself.
Cheers!
Great stuff, and precisely why I stopped watching the news years ago. I’ve been called “uninformed”, “ignorant”, and even “dumb AF” by others who walk around in a constant state of anxiety about the world. Sticks and stones, right?
Kim,
The funny thing is, there’s nothing in mainstream media that will “inform” you of anything. Books, long-form articles using hard data, research papers, and even (gasp!) going out in the real world and experiencing things for yourself will inform you much more than some opinionated agenda from mainstream media. Just my humble opinion. 🙂
Best wishes!