You're right. Why the Times Magazine or the New Yorker at least Columbia Journalism Review hasn't pounded these guys with long thoughtful cover stories about how the network is basically a Wall Street shill mill, a suck up, is beyond me. These are pretty awful days for old media though, it's almost become irrelevant.
. March 13, 2009 SouthAmerica: CNBC and most of its talking heads became a long time ago just cheerleaders for anything that might push the market averages up or even the houses of cards in the real estate market or any other bubble in sight including the derivatives market and so onâ¦. At any time of the day or night and at any point in the stock market or economic cycles itâs always time to buy â to buy anything. If you watch CNBC on a regular basis and you have followed the advice provided by most talking heads and guests who appear on that TV cable channel â you probably have lost most of your savings and your shirt. Here are some comments about CNBC that I have been posting on the ET forums. CNBC and Economic Damage Control http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=131887 Pimco, Bill Gross and CNBC http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=154992 General Electric Corp. (GE) - Is GE Okay? http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=141766 .
At the risk of sounding like a douchebag-which I proudly am-I've done better the past two years then probably 95% of the people reading this thread and I watch CNBC regularly. Of course I also subscribe to the print editions of FT and IBD. Here are the facts-some of which were made earlier, some were omitted. 1. Yes CNBC is too soft during interviews. For the same reason Barney Frank doesn't go on Limbaugh. HOWEVER if a CEO blatantly lies about the prospects/liabilities of his company that's an issue for the SEC not CNBC. The market imploded one day in '07 after Mizulo was interviewed. He's far from a forthright dude but his negative comments were the headline story of the day. Likewise with a Dimon interview a few months back. 2. The biggest "cheerleader" on CNBC is the wealthiest stock trader of all time. I for one LIVE to fade Buffet's ass but if Warren Buffet say's 'he's buying" then it's "news" no matter how you want to spin it. If he's in fact making the right move is the markets ultimate decision not CNBC's. So why not just have Buffet, Summer Redstone, Steve Wynn and a zillion other market losers go on Stewart's show? 3. No one here heard the news about mortgage derivative problems since March of 2007? Then get your heads out of your nether regions. Were daily newspapers like the NYT-who suck the tit of real estate advertisers any quicker to the meltdown story than Gasparino? 4. Many of you need to understand how markets work. I read a lot of illogical insanity on this board. Here's life: If a stock is $100 and everyone in the world has equal simultaneous knowledge that the stock is indeed bankrupt then what would happen? The stock would trade down to $1 with barely a trade in between. If EVERYONE knew the truth then there would be no buyers at 80, 70, 60 etc. TRUE efficiency would mean a world of gaps, eh? I've said this before: Just because people like Cramer, Gaspirino, Pizoni-have better contacts than you doesn't mean they can handicap the implications better than you. For the same reason sportswriters are crappy betters-and believe me a lot of scribes gamble and lose on NFL games. Look at a chart of SPX since last summer. What do you see? A market that crashed in chunks. What was the catalyst for every big washout? A POLITICAL event. SPX was at 1200 going into the TARP vote., 1000 the day after the election, 850 before Obama's budget and tax proposals were leaked. So ESSENTIALLY the best trader said "Obama sucks cock for stocks, any good news for Obama is bad news for the index." True, right? Clearly true. But Stewart-ironically like Cramer and 90% of Jewish guys in the media-LOVE Obama. The Obama "cheerleaders" are an even BIGGER FADE than the "economic" bulls. If I ever see Stewart I'll tell him like it is. 'Jon you and every other creepy media elite leftest pushed this bailout, stimulus, tax the fuck out of business agenda down America's throats and traders are voting with their sell orders." That folks is the REAL STORY of 2008/2009. Fuck Jon Stewart. And fuck Cramer too.
It's been less than a decade since the crucification of wall street for "forcing" the investing public to buy into the internet bubble, and consequently lose their shirts. Here we are again with the same people looking for someone to blame for losing again. If you make your trading/investment decisions based on what you hear on tv you have only yourself to blame for losses. It is up to the individual to research their own investments or trading strategies. It is this lack of personal responsibility that leads to so many failed traders and investors. There were many opportunities to get out before everything crashed, and if you ignored the housing/credit bubble because someone on tv told you things were ok, you had no business being in the market. I have always been a fan of Stewart, but his contention that "Wall Street" knew what was going on is ignorant, and only hurts our cause as traders. If the wall street money machine really knew what was going to happen, the market would not have held up as long as it did. While I have no problem with his criticism of CNBC, his vilification of "Wall Street" and traders only helps politicians like Defazio who are trying to tax and regulate short term traders out of existence.
I have a lot of Jewish friends-hell I was a pit trader in Chicago-and they know I'm not an anti-semite. on the other hand only a horse's ass could disagree with the following true statement: Most Jews are to the Left and the media has an inordinate number of Jews in high positions. Duh. Here's a column from a very talented Jewish writer for the L.A. Times named Joel Stein. He's a reason I LIKE JEWS-funny young guy. He took heat for this: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/celebrity/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,2313474.column
Yeah, I have to agree, and I am not Jewish, nor a huge fan of Israel these days. But that Jews in the media crack was at best unseemly and beneath the obvious intelligence, although I disagree with some of it, of the author.