At a recent University of Michigan event, Charlie Munger stated that our government should leave Social Security completely as-is. He was attacked by Bloomberg and ZeroHedge for various comments he made at said event.

Insurance Companies Steal Money From Fallen Soldiers

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the answer is no. On Thursday I documented a blatantly false Bloomberg news story designed to mislead readers about the level of support for President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Bloomberg’s poll (PDF), which the story was based on, asked the following (bottom of page five): “Do you think the spill proves off-shore drilling is just too dangerous and should be banned in U.S. waters, or was this a freak accident and offshore drilling can be made safer and should not be banned?” Based on this question, the Bloomberg headline blared: Americans in 73% Majority Oppose Deepwater Drilling Ban. The story begins, “Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill…” Bloomberg made the same false claim two days later in a Businessweek story.

Obviously, there is a huge difference between an indefinite ban on all offshore drilling and President Obama’s temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling. Regardless, Bloomberg polled about the former and reported on the latter. And frankly, I use the word ‘reported’ extremely loosely here. What Bloomberg actually did is fabricate public opinion information on a highly contested public policy issue that is currently being considered in some form by all three branches of government. This is important because political actors, both within Congress and the Obama Administration, may look to public opinion polls like this one to determine the proper course of action.

I’m not alone in finding Bloomberg’s reporting on this poll to be highly objectionable. Several thoughtful observers have taken note, criticizing Bloomberg’s coverage on the similar grounds. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones writes, “This is stunningly bad journalism… The Bloomberg results make for an exciting headline, but that’s about it. Correlation with reality is pretty close to zero.” At Media Matters, Eric Boehlert explains, “There’s an apples-and-oranges problem here that Bloomberg News ought to acknowledge and correct.” The Washington Post’s Jon Cohen adds, “The latter question is useful to understanding public attitudes, but it’s not necessarily focused on the ban that’s in place. That question potentially confounds views on the short-term ban, drilling more broadly and the cause of the spill.” And Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism writes, “I could tell from the mere headline that the poll question was inept and/or unduly suggestive.”

The beginning of this Bloomberg story is completely false:

Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill, even as they hold the company primarily responsible for the incident.

Almost three-fourths, or 73 percent, say a ban is unnecessary, calling the worst oil spill in U.S. history a “freak accident,” according to a Bloomberg National Poll.

Without looking at the poll’s toplines (PDF), you might not realize what is wrong with these two paragraphs. As it turns out, Bloomberg’s poll did not ask about President Obama’s temporary ban on deepwater drilling. Here is the question they actually asked:

As you can see, they asked whether all offshore drilling should be banned in U.S. waters, without specifying a timeframe. President Obama’s moratorium, on the other hand, applies only to deepwater drilling (deepter than 1,000 feet) and only for six months.

I’ve emailed the Bloomberg reporter who made this mistake, Kim Chipman, and will be updating here if a correction is made.

The Daily Beast and The Atlantic have also picked up Bloomberg’s erroneous reporting on this. I’ve requested corrections from both of these publications as well.

Don Blankenship is in more hot water. Maybe one day this coal conman will be ousted, or better yet…arrested

DOW drops 998, Bloomberg & Zerohedge Offline

Canada went beyond erecting a memorial to commemorate 26 workers killed in a coal dust and methane explosion at the Westray mine 18 years ago. Canada criminalized corporate disregard for worker safety. It’s called the Westray Law. America needs its own such statute – an Upper Big Branch Law – holding corporate managers and directors criminally accountable for ditching safety for dollars.