Thursday, January 14, 2010

Business Journalists: They Know Nothing

They know nothing!
   —Jim Cramer

Many stock market fans will recall this line from Jim Cramer's "rant heard round the world" on CNBC-TV in the spring of 2008. He was specifically decrying how the Federal Reserve, and the Federal government for that matter, seemed oblivious to:
  • the blatant manipulation of the market via illegal short-selling strategies of hedge funds and other miscreants; and
  • the need for immediate government intervention in the markets to head off an epic financial crisis
Cramer was way ahead of the curve. If the Feds had acted at that time, they might have forestalled the worst of the current catastrophe.

Today it's today's financial journalists who "know nothing." Aside from deadline-driven bad reporting ("the market was down today because Ben Bernanke forgot to use a comma at a crucial point in his report"), the financial media never connect the dots.

Case in point. On CNBC online this morning, we get a lot of palaver about persistently bad unemployment numbers just out. The uncredited writers' conclusion:
The data, coming in the wake of a report last week showing a surprise drop in non-farm payrolls in December, could add to worries that the economic expansion that started in the third quarter of 2008 could falter once government stimulus ends.
Stubbornly high unemployment remains the weakest link in the recovery from the worst economic downturn since the 1930s.
Case in point. But the piece never connects the dots. Why? Either political ideology or, more likely, just plain ignorance.

"Stubbornly high" unemployment will stay that way as long as the Obama Administration and our current Marxist Congress dither with gigantic, expensive distractions like cap-and-trade, the Great Healthcare Pork Barrel, and punishments (i.e., big taxes) for only recently rescued banks and for their (almost certainly overpaid) high end employees. The problem here is getting people back to work. Aside from the "stimulus bill" (really a big payoff to public employee unions), no attention whatever has been paid to boosting small businesses and getting them back in hiring mode. As long as the financial media fail to put this issue front and center, the crucial unemployment problem will either persist or grow worse.  Unfortunately, "they know nothing."

1 comment:

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