The Pursuit of Sexy Postures through Taking Leave of the Basics

The Daily Nation (9th June 2015) - Smart Company - has a sexy story on how banks are cartel-like and how they are staring at trouble from the competition watchdog - thus the Competition Authority zeroes in. This comes a day after I published a commentary in its sister publication, the Business Daily, where I argued based on a study that the banking industry is characterised strong competitive attributes. Either the Daily Nation knows something about competition generally and in the banking industry specifically than I do,  or we define a cartel differently.
In economics, a cartel is an agreement between competing firms to control prices or exclude entry of a new competitor in a market. It is a formal organization of sellers or buyers that agree to fix selling prices, purchase prices, or reduce production using a variety of tactics. If you read my piece, you will see where I am coming from where the inference is the exact opposite of what the Daily Nation story seems to  imply. But that is economics. I do not know how a cartel is defined in journalism.
When the Central Bank of Kenya recently published the margin that each bank was charging above the common benchmark (so-called Kenya Banks Reference Rate), the story was about "which banks to avoid when seeking a loan". The Daily Nation's counsel this time around was based on the wide pricing differential amongst banks. Now that the leading daily is flogging the cartel story, the message is that in a short one week banks have swung from charging disparate prices for credit to fixing them.
I guess basics do not matter if the objective is for the story to be sexy and draw emotions. That is why this seems to be the Nation Media Group editorial policy - official or otherwise. Evidence to this effect is overwhelming, at least to me; and I have made illustrations before of the same.
To demonstrate that this is a common occurrence, I will pick another story in the today's Business Daily. First, some basics (I do not what to take anything for granted:

• In the credit market, the principal is the amount borrowed/lent;
• Interest is the price paid/earned from the principal;
• Therefore interest does not determine the principal; instead the need and ability (what in our tribe we call effective demand) determines the principal.

So when the Business Daily tells you that the average size of mortgages has increased to Sh7.5 million, making it difficult for a majority of Kenyans to own homes financed by commercial  banks, and this is arising from high interest rates (even among other factors), then know that somebody is being lazy. But hey, a daily newspaper has a lifespan of just a  few hours and you have forgotten about its contents until the following day!  Right? Right.