CNBC's Crossfire Moment

by Ali-Asad



"I know you want to make finance entertaining - but it's not a f------- game"
~Jon Stewart


John Stewart has just done for financial news networks what he did for political ‘debate’ shows on Crossfire – exposed them for what they really are. For those not in the know, a week back Stewart invited Rick Santelli to come on his show. Santelli had made news when he called people who couldn’t stay in their homes as “losers”, and that he didn’t like the government’s plan to help pay for the ”loser’s mortages”. Santelli never made it on Stewart’s show. But Stewart did do an 8 minute long segment chastising the ‘financial experts’ on CNBC for not seeing the current financial crisis by – as Stewart does – humorously pointing out how badly wrong they were. In this segment, Stewart targeted, among others, Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money. Cramer took offense to Stewart’s comments, and so Stewart did the only logical thing – invited him on the Daily Show.







(Alternative link)

What Stewart does here is show that not only did the ‘financial experts’ on TV know traders and banks were gambling with peoples’ pensions, but that they also essentially covered for these trader and bankers by not conducting honest journalism and not investigating their “shenanigans”. Stewart, in front of a humbled Cramer, demonstrates that has inherent conflicts of interest that screw over unknowing investors.

“CNBC could be an incredibly powerful tool of illumination…there are 2 markets: one that has been sold to us as long term – put your money in 401K’s and pensions and just leave it there…then there’s this other market – this real market, that’s occurring in the back room where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it's transactional and it’s fast but it’s dangerous and ethically dubious…it feels like we’re capitalizing your adventure…And it’s a game you know - you know it’s going on…But you go on television as a financial network and pretend it’s not happening.”

Bang.

And that's jus' the tip.