Reasons to Look for More Bull in 2009

What doth not kill you is supposed to make you stronger, but seeing the same mistakes over and over again from the business media just might kill The Business Press Maven in 2009.

Even as the new year approaches in a matter of hours, we are bearing sad witness to the same old/same old -- as if the business media's standing resolution is to repeat the errors of the past in a pathetically endless loop.

Let's look at three examples, quickly, so you'll have time to ice the champagne. But don't go until we end 2008 in the only appropriate way -- with a call for reader vigilantism.

One of the first articles The Business Press Maven wrote in 2008 was Why the Dollar Matters in Real Estate Stories, in which he took to task a New York Times story dealing with "the mystery" of why the New York real estate market was running better than the national trend ... without once mentioning the impact of the weak dollar.

That's the same weak dollar that has foreigners buying apartments in cities attractive to them, propping up the market. You have to mention it because it is such a big factor and implies caution. Housing prices in such cities are only as strong as the dollar is weak.

But guess what'll be one of the last articles The Business Press Maven reads in 2008? A big article in The Wall Street Journal this morning with this lead, but nary a mention of the weak dollar:

"Although New York has been at the epicenter of the financial crisis, housing prices in the city haven't dropped nearly as fast as cities elsewhere."