Thursday, March 05, 2009

I'm laughing because I'm tired of complaining

Last night's Daily Show absolutely eviscerated the talking heads on CNBC over their coverage of the financial crisis. No one was safe. They started with Rick Santelli's rant on a trading floor about bailing out people with bad mortgages, and pointed out the hypocrisy of arguing against helping homeowners while favoring helping out the banks that got the homeowners into this mess. (The whole segment came up because Santelli cancelled on his scheduled appearance on the show.) I'm not sure what was the best (or worst) thing about CNBC: arguing that the worst was over six months ago or a year ago when the market still had twice the value it does now; telling us that companies like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and AIG were in no way in danger of collapse; or talking to Allen Stanford about how he was making money in a bear market. Actually, that last one was definitely the worst. The guy was running a Ponzi scheme! Isn't CNBC a news channel? Aren't they supposed to cover these companies in depth? Shouldn't they have noticed the funny numbers in his portfolio? I guess after Bernie Madoff they figured no one else out there would be stupid enough to run a Ponzi scheme.

The Colbert Report's "Doom Bunker" segment was equally good. I am afraid of a werewolf Congress, but I think I could get by in a soybean-based economy.

No comments: