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Chris Becker says Macrobusiness has devolved into a pit of trolls and vested interests; Claims he lost $100,000 in time and money moderating their astrotufing on the Macrobusiness blog
Topic Started: 2 Dec 2013, 10:23 AM (10,575 Views)
Dr Kinetoscope
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Dr Watson
2 Dec 2013, 11:41 AM
Becker is absolutely correct about commenters having "axes to grind". MB seems to be almost a therapist's couch for many of the commenters these days. It allows them to vent their economic and political grievances. Some of them are legitimate grievances, but it soon becomes repetitive and predictable.

The trouble is the commenters have become parasites who are not really adding any value to MB. The axe-grinders are using the site for their emotional release while the astroturfers have their own agenda. Who is proposing original or constructive solutions?

Becker has raised a very interesting point. I think the same challenge of moderation exists for the newspapers and their blogs at a time of widespread cost-cutting in the media industry.

How long the media industry can sustain paying for this indulgence is the question.
And therin is the problem.

It is impossible to sustain a stable of educated, paid contributors on web display advertising alone - something lost on Shadow, who is clearly not at all familiar with how media business models work.

A model featuring subscription fees (which is now becoming commonplace) provides a financial base which provides invaluable business certainty, in what is the most volatile advertising market in the history of media.

In fact, it is these sorts of subscription fees that help prevent the 'content advertising' garbage that the Tele and the Herald are becoming loaded with these days. This is especially endemic in the property and lifestyle sections, and is not in the public's interest. As an aside, it has come to my attention that Fairfax have launched a dedicated 'content' sales and marketing team, so expect to see much more of this in 2014.

I assume people like Shadow wont be happy until all of our media outlets are spewing out 100% paid-for propaganda 24/7.

Edited by Dr Kinetoscope, 3 Dec 2013, 11:47 PM.
Architecture Porn
ShadBerg's torrid Macrobusiness love affair
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Shadow
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Evil Mouzealot Specufestor

Dr Kinetoscope
3 Dec 2013, 11:47 PM
It is impossible to sustain a stable of educated, paid contributors on web display advertising alone - something lost on Shadow, who is clearly not at all familiar with how media business models work.

I assume people like Shadow wont be happy until all of our media outlets are spewing out 100% paid-for propaganda 24/7.
Clearly you are not at all familiar with how the Macrobusiness model works.

1. Charge members a $480 annual subscription fee for MacroInvestor. Cancel it after six months and don't refund the remaining subscription.

2. Spam members (including banned ex-members) with junk mail offers, even after they have asked to be removed from the mailing list.

3. Ask members to donate $100 per annum, in return for nothing that isn't already available for free to others.

Then there's the fact that the advice they charge members for has been crap... share portfolios that underperform the ASX, predictions of house price crashes that never happen, predictions of recessions, the collapse of China, high unemployment, iron ore collapse etc etc.

I have no problem with quality websites charging fees in an honest manner for good advice and information, but Macrobusiness charge fees and donations in a pretty underhand manner, for advice and analysis that has proved to be totally wrong and useless. Financially damaging in fact. And then the MB bloggers use that money extracted from members to pay off their own mortgages, while preaching hypocritically about 'The Bubble' and discouraging others from owning a home. MB is just a paid-for soapbox for disillusioned self-entitled bears to vent and preach their negative propaganda.

I assume people like Dr Kinetoscope wont be happy until all of our media outlets are spewing out this type of doom & gloom paid-for propaganda 24/7.

Quote:
 
It is impossible to sustain a stable of educated, paid contributors on web display advertising alone
Property Observer seems to manage it quite well.
Edited by Shadow, 4 Dec 2013, 07:21 AM.
1. Epic Fail! Steve Keen's Bad Calls and Predictions.
2. Residential property loans regulated by NCCP Act. Banks can't margin call unless borrower defaults.
3. Housing is second highest taxed sector of Australian Economy. Renters subsidised by highly taxed homeowners.
4. Ongoing improvement in housing affordability. Australian household formation faster than population growth since 1960s.
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Catweasel
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Shadow
4 Dec 2013, 07:11 AM
Clearly you are not at all familiar with how the Macrobusiness model works.

1. Charge members a $480 annual subscription fee for MacroInvestor. Cancel it after six months and don't refund the remaining subscription.

2. Spam members (including banned ex-members) with junk mail offers, even after they have asked to be removed from the mailing list.

3. Ask members to donate $100 per annum, in return for nothing that isn't already available for free to others.

Then there's the fact that the advice they charge members for has been crap... share portfolios that underperform the ASX, predictions of house price crashes that never happen, predictions of recessions, the collapse of China, high unemployment, iron ore collapse etc etc.

I have no problem with quality websites charging fees in an honest manner for good advice and information, but Macrobusiness charge fees and donations in a pretty underhand manner, for advice and analysis that has proved to be totally wrong and useless. Financially damaging in fact. And then the MB bloggers use that money extracted from members to pay off their own mortgages, while preaching hypocritically about 'The Bubble' and discouraging others from owning a home. MB is just a paid-for soapbox for disillusioned self-entitled bears to vent and preach their negative propaganda.

I assume people like Dr Kinetoscope wont be happy until all of our media outlets are spewing out this type of doom & gloom paid-for propaganda 24/7.


Property Observer seems to manage it quite well.
Catweasel say if mouse and mouzealots,

not have its squawk gurus and anti-gurus,

it like floating in a Tasman in inflatable,

try to make it to a New the Zealand without compass, iPhone, or even paddle.

But it go the even deeper,

physical the location might be unknown,

but emotions would be missing essential the drugs to make it a security.

Naughty blogger have many the free,

mouzealot not have to pay.

It just probably harder the virtual space for mouzealot to rip its pants off for the shock value,

hence its the reaction to naughty blog.
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Pig Iron
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Bogan scum

I actually feel a bit sorry for becker.

his down fall was the now infamous short on the iron ore price. he was convinced like the rest of the bears on here that iron ore was headed for a huge crash. the problem was he based this on his expectation housing would crash, so he let the tail wag the dog and assumed since housing had to crash one of the key pillars holding it up would also crash.

I am the love child of Tony Abbott and Pauline Hanson
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Dr Watson
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Pig Iron
4 Dec 2013, 11:23 AM
I actually feel a bit sorry for becker.

his down fall was the now infamous short on the iron ore price. he was convinced like the rest of the bears on here that iron ore was headed for a huge crash. the problem was he based this on his expectation housing would crash, so he let the tail wag the dog and assumed since housing had to crash one of the key pillars holding it up would also crash.

The bearish stance on iron ore was something of an editorial position taken at MacroBusiness and Becker toed the party line. It cost his portfolio dearly. David has a very good record with predicting interest rates but his iron ore predictions have been found wanting time and again. There is a danger when predictions are driven by emotions. I think they will both learn from the experience.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt — Bertrand Russell
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peter fraser
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Dr Watson
4 Dec 2013, 11:32 AM
Pig Iron
4 Dec 2013, 11:23 AM
I actually feel a bit sorry for becker.

his down fall was the now infamous short on the iron ore price. he was convinced like the rest of the bears on here that iron ore was headed for a huge crash. the problem was he based this on his expectation housing would crash, so he let the tail wag the dog and assumed since housing had to crash one of the key pillars holding it up would also crash.

The bearish stance on iron ore was something of an editorial position taken at MacroBusiness and Becker toed the party line. It cost his portfolio dearly. David has a very good record with predicting interest rates but his iron ore predictions have been found wanting time and again. There is a danger when predictions are driven by emotions. I think they will both learn from the experience.
+1 - it would have looked odd if Chris had bet the silver on an opposite trade. David has been consistently wrong on the direction of the ore price and housing. His record on interest rates is Ok but he still doesn't understand the effect that both falling interest rates and falling iron ore prices have on the AUD. That cushions the falling ore prices.

At the request of Lorax and others DLS did once produce a graph of iron ore prices in AUD and then promptly hid it again. Chris would have thought that he had "insider knowledge" on iron ore and naturally backed that call. It's an understandable position to take.

Shadow do you still have your graph on iron ore in AUD?

Any expressed market opinion is my own and is not to be taken as financial advice
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Frank Castle
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Business As Usual

Pig Iron
4 Dec 2013, 11:23 AM
I actually feel a bit sorry for becker.

his down fall .............

I'm waiting for the downfall parody video :D
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The forum fuckwit goes RRRAAARRRGGHHhhh - But not a fuck was given..................by anyone.
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Veritas
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Quote:
 
3. Ask members to donate $100 per annum, in return for nothing that isn't already available for free to others.


It wouldn't be free to others if some people weren't paying the money.

:re:

You don't like Macro business because it counters your narrative.

Simple as that.
Property acquisition as a topic was almost a national obsession. You couldn't even call it speculation as the buyers all presumed the price of property could only go up. That’s why we use the word obsession. Ordinary people were buying properties for their young children who had not even left school assuming they would not be able to afford property of their own when they left college- Klaus Regling on Ireland. Sound familiar?

The evidence of nearly 40 cycles in house prices for 17 OECD economies since 1970 shows that real house prices typically give up about 70 per cent of their rise in the subsequent fall, and that these falls occur slowly.
Morgan Kelly:On the Likely Extent of Falls in Irish House Prices, 2007
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Frank Castle
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Business As Usual

Veritas
4 Dec 2013, 12:01 PM


It wouldn't be free to others if some people weren't paying the money.

Yet here you are, posting on a free forum where the predictions have had a far better success rate than macrobusiness
They have a failed business model, much like their predictions.
Edited by Frank Castle, 4 Dec 2013, 12:07 PM.
Ignore posts by The Whole Truth · View Post · End Ignoring
The forum fuckwit goes RRRAAARRRGGHHhhh - But not a fuck was given..................by anyone.
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Veritas
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Frank Castle
4 Dec 2013, 12:06 PM
Yet here you are, posting on a free forum where the predictions have had a far better success rate than macrobusiness
They have a failed business model, much like their predictions.
Predictions are only one part of it. I like MB and I like it here. Whats wrong with that?

Shadow is so threatened by Macrobusiness that he trolls the Property observer site under the handle "Macrobusiness".

Why?

Property acquisition as a topic was almost a national obsession. You couldn't even call it speculation as the buyers all presumed the price of property could only go up. That’s why we use the word obsession. Ordinary people were buying properties for their young children who had not even left school assuming they would not be able to afford property of their own when they left college- Klaus Regling on Ireland. Sound familiar?

The evidence of nearly 40 cycles in house prices for 17 OECD economies since 1970 shows that real house prices typically give up about 70 per cent of their rise in the subsequent fall, and that these falls occur slowly.
Morgan Kelly:On the Likely Extent of Falls in Irish House Prices, 2007
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