Nate Silver: AIG: How a Meme Spreads

[babylonsister]

AIG: How a Meme Spreads


One of the cool features at Memeorandum, my favorite aggregator of political content, is that you can warp back to any previous point in time to see which stories were dominating bandwidth on the World Wide Web. Here, for example, is what the world looked like on Election Night, or on the morning that Sarah Palin was selected to be John McCain's running mate.

I thought it would be useful to examine how the current controversy surrounding AIG has spread throughout the Internet over the past several days. This story has been a little bit unusual in that it's not all that newsworthy: AIG's intention to pay its so-called retention bonuses has been public knowledge for some time. But the story has absolutely blown up within the past 72 hours.

The immediate trigger for the controversy appears to have come late Saturday evening, when the Washington Post posted the web version of a page A01 story from its Sunday edition: "AIG Paying Millions in Bonuses Despite Receiving Federal Bailout". The Washington Post story contained two real pieces of reporting: firstly, that Tim Geithner had been talking to AIG CEO Edward Liddy about the retention bonuses and was extremely unhappy about them, and secondly, that Geithner had prevailed upon Liddy to make some revisions to other types of bonus provisions. The first blogger to pick up the story and show up on Memorandum's radar screen was David Waldman at Congress Matters. By midnight, he'd been joined by only a couple others, although meanwhile, the New York Times published a story that largely replicated the Washington Post's reporting.

On Sunday, the story gained significant steam throughout the liberal blogosphere. By 3 PM, according to Memeorandum, 20 independent (e.g. not related to a major media outlet) blogs had picked up some variant of the AIG story, of which 16 (by my count) have a definitive liberal orientation. There was then an additional round of attention later in the day, this time mostly coming from the mainstream media, after AIG's counterparty list was released, and as the papers began to release content online from their Monday editions.

AIG-related affairs continued to dominate the discussion on Monday after Barack Obama said he wanted to block the bonuses and amidst speculation about the political fallout. Over the course of the day, the discussion tended to shift from liberal blogs to mainstream media channels.

more...

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/aig-how-meme-spreads.html

[annabanana]

1. Nate Silver tells us what we already know. .

It takes a HEAP of online noise to smash the MSM ceiling on any story. And some never quite acheive that volume.

[Beetwasher]

2. Was It The Online Noise Or The Recognition Of A Good Angle To ATTACK OBAMA?

IOW, did MSM seize this because of online noise? Or did they do it because they recognized it as an opportunity to finally get something effective to club Obama with (deservedly or not)?

[KittyWampus]

4. Look, there is serious malfeasance going on. When AIG said "fuck you" about the bonuses

it gave the perfect opportunity to shine a spot light on them.

MAYBE the Mediawhores play catch-up with liberal blogs or try to use the issue against Obama.

But this can and should backfire.

This is about serious criminal activity at AIG. They are idiots for allowing this to shine a light on them.

They are now the bad guys.

See Josh Marshall. He and his team are all over AIG and they won't let go.

So rather than talk about how Mediawhores may use this against Obama, keep moving forward with info TPM comes up with to DEMAND AIG's Financial Division and be investigated.

[Beetwasher]

5. Did I Say There Wasn't Malfeasance????

The question is WHY NOW when this has been known about for a while. :shrug:

It's probably a combination of reasons, one of which, IMO, is it's finally something many (especially the corporate/traditional media) feel that can use to club Obama.

I'm very happy about the light being shown on this subject.

[KittyWampus]

7. as I said, AIG's management said "fuck you" to Obama and the public. That's why.

they were ultimately stupid by drawing more negative attention to themselves.

i wonder where John Kerry is.

[Beetwasher]

10. That's Part Of It

But only part of it. Things aren't necessarily so cut and dry and by disregarding the potential other motives of the Traditional Media to push certain stories you don't get the full picture.

[Laelth]

11. We don't want to shine a spotlight on AIG.

We had to have AIG's participation in the bailout. Both American political parties knew it, and both parties have taken steps to insure it.

AIG and bank executives said they would not participate in the bailout if their bonuses were capped. They blackmailed us. The Federal Government can't let these banks (nor AIG which insured the credit default swaps) fail, because if it did, foreign banks would lose confidence in the U.S. and would not loan the government the $1.5 trillion it needs to keep the government running. Foreign banks finance the U.S. national debt, and AIG insures those banks against losses. AIG held a gun to our head and said, effectively, give us our bonuses or the whole Federal Government collapses because no bank will be willing to lend the U.S. money.

So, Treasury insisted that the bonuses be allowed, and the restriction against them (that Dodd had insisted upon) was removed. Here, Obama did what he felt was best, and I am hesitant to second-guess him on this.

That's what I think happened.

:dem:

-Laelth

cross-posted--five times now.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Huh? Are the Post and the Times not...

MSM? They broke the story, and without them there would likely be no massive hysteria over this.

(People MUST get away from thinking cable news is important when it rarely reaches half the viewership of Spongebob and has never managed to break an important story in its short and sorry history.)

[BlooInBloo]

3. A good complement to Greenwald's classic...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/18/beltway_wisdom/

[burythehatchet]

6. The bous story was the shiny object to take attention away from the COUNTERPARTIES.

GOLDMAN SACHS GOLDMAN SACHS GOLDMAN SACHS

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[KittyWampus]

8. this hasn't taken away attention. And the counterparties aren't the whole story. Again,

please go to TPMemo and note that Josh Marshall is going back to AIG's Financial Division circa 2007 and what the head of that division told Accountants, Shareholders, Regulators etc.

[Laelth]

12. As I understand it, many of the counterparties are foreign banks that finance the national debt.

We need them to continue to finance the national debt, or our government will collapse.

:dem:

-Laelth