CNBC still spewing stupidity

Rick Santelli (never heard of him before) is a CNBC hack . His so-called rant on the trading floor today that is being cheered by the Republicans strangely doesn’t address the bank bailouts which also as he calls it, is “reward for bad behavior.” Also, why should we pay attention to CNBC anymore after they goofed up big time on the current market crisis? Jim Cramer and his cronies screwed up big time in the period leading up to the market crash in September. If everything the business media reported and opined on in the last few years turned out to be horribly wrong and misguided then we’ve no reason to hear any suggestions from them now. Until they own up to their past mistakes. And nope, Rick doesn’t speak for Americans. He merely speaks for the bailout banks that are now forced to the negotiated table because they failed to monitor their business practices.

Also, if NBC is indeed the liberal media in this country, I can’t imagine what the conservative media is harping on today. I agree with Washington Monthly’s assessment that the mainstream media is sadly becoming an echo chamber and fast losing touch with the American people.Or is it that, as the Onion would say it, American people are out of touch with the Washington media?

Update: It looks like Santelli’s ‘tea party revolution’ ended before it could bring people to the streets:

TODAY had on CNBC ranter Rick Santelli to debate the merits with colleague Steve Liesman, who penned a favorable review of Obama’s plan yesterday in the New York Daily News. Pressed for real solutions, Santelli offered none.

“CNBC still spewing stupidity” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=2868] was published Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 4:31 pm by Patrix, filed under Business, Politics, and tagged as bailout, Business, fraud, recession. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

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catch22
Rick santelli has been against all bailouts. If you have watched cnbc regularly he has taken on jim cramer, steve liesman etc. If only cnbc would give him more airtime..He is the only person on cnbc to talk sense. Don harrold has chronicled ricks sensible talks for sometime.
http://www.youtube.com/user/donharrold
Ofcourse Jim cramer and his company have been investigated by
http://www.deepcapture.com for quite sometime.

http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
I don’t know much about Santelli so am not aware of his position on other bailouts but found it strange that he would rant on the $75bn housing bailout while staying mum on $700 TARP bailout. I just found his rant too theatrical and staged with all those traders cheering him.

http://www.parablog.com/wp/ Parag
I agree with Santelli most of the times. He is usually the most sane person with other capitalistic madhatters on CNBC. You are being unfair by equating Santelli with Cramer. All they share is the same network but little else.
It is just ridiculous how this and the last administration are rewarding bad behavior. People like me who are being fiscally responsible, living within our means and making our mortgage payments are getting the shaft.
Also, GE is in the media business for making money. They don’t care about which side they support: liberal or conservative.

http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
While I agree in principle of being against bailouts, there is honestly no other way out. I read your post and wanted to respond to some of your points but it is like being between a rock and hard place. We’re paying for mistakes of the past administration(s) and lack of oversight and smart regulations.
Re: media, I’ve honestly lost all confidence in expecting honest reporting. And as someone wise pointed out, conflict works to their benefit and when there isn’t any, they thrive on creating it. Hence the disproportionate coverage of stupid arguments (how high does a stack of $100 bills go up to make a trillion? WTF!) against these bailout when in fact there are genuine and real arguments out there.

http://www.parablog.com/wp/ Parag
The new administration is supposed to be and promised to be smarter than the last one. But, they are not doing anything much different. Same tax cuts, same stimulus checks and same rewards for bad behavior. Where is the change?
Nobody needs more than 60 minutes of global news (Newshour on PBS). When cable channels have to keep operating 24/7 (Damn you, Ted Turner!), they have to create news. Same problem here and in India. They definitely like the conflict. If there are too many liberal voices in media and there is need for more conservative ones, GE will turn MSNBC into next Fox News without thinking twice about it.

http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Parag, I guess we should give the new administration more time. I find the over-reliance on tax cuts frustrating too when it is clear that they haven’t worked previously. But remember in spite of all these tax cuts, the Republicans refused to vote for the bill. Some say, it might be the first time the Republicans voted against the largest tax cut ever. The threat of filibuster has basically put Collin, Snowe, and Specter in charge of any major legislation. The downsides of democracy are that major changes are going to take time to implement. The Obama administration is going to need all the political skill it can muster to bring about real change.
Media rants are a whole series of posts in themselves. Media Matters does a fine job on a near-daily basis.

Chris
Patrix,
I buy and sell stocks, I try to listen to CNBC but now it has turned from the financial channel to the political channel, and it makes me sick. Less talk about business and yet way more politics, that lets you know where we are, a bunch of no business socalled intellectuals talking about things they know nothing of.
Anyway, I was watching closely to CNBC, this was before they turned 75% political hack show.
EVERYONE on CNBC was against the bailouts at first, even Steve LIESman, he was totally against it as was everyone. Santelli was against any form of government intervention. Amazingly about 2 days after the announcement of the hoopla, Steve LIESman did an about face and now has become a full fledged poster boy of the federal reserve, he agrues the feds case anytime there is a dissenter on, which is rare these days. Obviosly the Obama gang told Jeff Immelt (GE CEO – owner of CNBC) to calm down the crew and speak good of Obama’s plans and of course then GE got the $10Billion government check. How did that happen?, they aren’t classified as a bank? People are still wondering how did they get $10 Billion from the government and what a coincidence that all the sudden all the Obama dissentors had been shut up and are now singing a different tune. Of course Dillon Ratigan got moved out, he was probably another one of the most vocal dissentors on CNBC. I was rumored that GE gave Santelli a week off to be Obama indoctrinated and we have seen very little of Charlie Gasporino either, another vocal critic of the banks and the government, of course he was doing REAL reporting and finding out REAL facts of what was going on in the government deals and bullying, but just like that, all those guys are now gone, all shut up, the excellent reporting just hushed away from the transparent Obama gang.
Now, we have the government propoganda channel, its all good news everything is looking good. Last week they were saying the recession is over! LOL give me a break!
PATRIX:
You cannot honestly say there was no other way out.
There were two roads, let the banks fail or bail them out, you failed to see the other road, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have lead to a better outcome. YOU couldn’t see any other way out and YOU would rather rely on the government than the free market to do the work.
I know many will say the free market failed, what failed is the global free market especially banking and the outsourcing of American jobs and the influx of 20 million illegals which sent housing prices high as well as lowering wages making it harder for Americans to make the higher house payments. Before globalism and free trade sent our manufacturing and jobs out of this country, we were doing alright.
These global players are always harping on protectionism, oh it is bad for America, all countries have some form of protectionism, they just don’t want us to do it, obviously if we are having trade deficits all the time it isn’t being fair and equal trade which means someone is doing protectionism somewhere. If your child and two other children were in a boat and it capsized, and you could only save one child which one would it be, yours or the two other children, how would you choose? If you choose to save your child are you a protectionist? A bigot, a racist? No, your saving your own and that is what this country needs to think about right now, all these other countries have taken care of themselves in the past and they can do it again. While we have neglected the very people paying for the globalism, the American Tax payer, which is essentially paying for the rope to hang himself, which should by its very nature be against the law and I’m sure its unconstitutional. The American people are no longer represented by the elected politicians, the government takes it’s orders from the global elite. We need to re visit the supreme court decision essentially saying your money is equal to your voice, this way we can get corporate money out of politics, as the American people can never match the money of the elite international money piles. In other words the supreme court said whoever has the most money, has the loudest voice, this is wrong. We also need to reverse the law deciding that a corporation is equal to a person and is subject to the same laws and rights as a person, because a business is not a person!

http://retributions.nationalinterest.in Rohit
How does he speak for the banks when he is opposing bail out for them? And I am not sure what you mean when you say ”they have been forced to the negotiating table”? Whose?
Indeed, Krugman has been arguing that the Obama administration is not going far enough by temporarily nationalizing the private banks which means the bailout will simply benefit the existing bank shareholders. Hell, Even Greenspan is saying the same thing. It must be first time in decades when Greenspan and Krugman have agreed on anything!
As far the bailout e.t.c is concerned, if you read Krugman’s last column, he pretty much suggested that bailout or no bailout, the next 4-5 years are going to be bad. Not sure in that case, hurrying through trillion $ bailouts, whether TARP or the latest Obama plan, makes much sense.

http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
The problem is that we don’t know whom is Santelli speaking for? Is he just rehashing the theoretical argument that bailouts are bad? If that’s it, then that argument has been made before and economists and policy wonks have moved beyond it. My only problem with Santelli’s rant was that he seemed to make a big deal out of the housing bailout when in fact the bank bailouts were ten times bigger. And he openly admits to have not read the housing plan at all. There are plenty of disagreements with the plan but Santelli and his cohorts at CNBC are the last people to trust on this one.

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CNBC still spewing stupidity

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