The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
NY Times on how realtors lock the doors of competition from banks and online brokers; Dobbs sees “Red” over Chinese cars in American showrooms; Reporters jump to conclusions on frog extinction from single study.

Jan. 18, 2006

     A New York Times reporter dishes up a scoop on how the real estate lobby games the regulatory system to bar competition. CNN’s Lou Dobbs worries yet again about foreign competition – this time substandard but cheap Chinese cars. And the media hype an isolated study which says tropical frogs are dropping like flies due to global warming, but no dissenting scientists are allowed to rain on the climate change parade.

The Good
     With his Jan. 12 Business Day article, “Lobbying to Sell Your House,” New York Times reporter Glen Justice wins “The Good” award this week for detailing the anti-free market lengths the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has gone to in lobbying the federal government to keep banks out of real estate brokerage. “Consumers are increasingly wondering why they are often charged more to sell a home than to purchase a new car,” Consumer Federation of America’s Stephen Brobeck told the Times. Justice noted that a virtual monopoly held by realtors is maintained by government regulation that keeps the banking industry out of real estate sales. Also, NAR, which spent $13.5 million in 2004 on lobbying, has opposed competition from online real estate services by opposing new guidelines on Internet properties listings.

The Bad
     “The Red Chinese are coming, the Red Chinese are coming,” seems to be the cry from Lou Dobbs about next year’s planned invasion by the Chinese car company, Geely. But CNN’s persistently pessimistic mercantilist minuteman should hold his horses when it comes to the “Red Star Rising.” Geely, sounding much like the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez box office clunker, is being wheeled into American showrooms by the man who brought America the substandard Yugo in the 1980s and whose Subaru imports command just 2 percent of American market share. If that’s not enough to calm Lou, Chinese consumers themselves prefer higher-quality General Motors products over the home-made Geely. Reuters reported in a January 9 article that “GM, which operates in a partnership with Shanghai Auto, sold 665,000 cars in China in 2005 and has taken the top spot there in terms of market share with its Buick brand.” If Geely is hardly a showroom draw in Shanghai, it’s unlikely to be one in Small Town, U.S.A.

The Ugly
     “Disease is the bullet killing frogs, but climate change is pulling the trigger,” warned the author of a new study which ABC’s Bill Blakemore and the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin recently jumped on. Yet while their reports were swamped with approval from climate change theorists on this solitary study, no dissenters were allowed to voice their opposition. Those dissenters would include University of Virginia climatologist Pat Michaels, who argued that interaction with humans, not “global warming,” could be to blame for species of amphibians croaking.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly tracks the best and worst media coverage of business and economics. Readers are invited to submit suggestions or news tips to staff writer Ken Shepherd at kshepherd@mediaresearch.org.