Economy

An Alien Discovers Paul Ryan’s Republican Budget

Posted by on June 26, 2011 at 2:45 pm. 6 Comments :

Last week the Republicans walked out of the congressional deliberations regarding the debt ceiling. They continue to hold the nation’s economic survival hostage to their obsession for ever more benefits for the wealthy and cuts for the needy – the Republican Model of Shared Sacrifice. As usual, the press fails to put into context the core differences between the Democrats and Republicans. However, those differences are pretty easy to figure out and they have been itemized by economists at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.

“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get nearly two-thirds of its $4.5 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve people of limited means.“

If an alien exploring the Earth were to draw conclusions about what the most pressing problems are for its inhabitants based on the Ryan budget, it would probably look something like this:


What it boils down to is that Republicans think that the current deficit problems should be resolved by cutting services to seniors, poor children, the disabled, and other low-income Americans. These freeloaders should bear the the burden of restoring our economy’s health, while the wealthy get more tax relief so that they can buy bigger boats and save for their luxury retirement.

Why anyone would think that working Americans and their families should suffer in order to repair problems caused by corporations and Wall Street bankers is unfathomable. But that’s what the GOP is proposing and they’re willing to send the nation into a disastrous default if they don’t get their way.

People Want Substance – Media Dishes Scandal

Posted by on June 15, 2011 at 3:26 pm. 3 Comments :

A report published by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reveals the gaping divergence between the issues of interest to the American people and those covered by the media.

According to the survey, Americans were most interested in the economy (23%), but the press coverage of that issue amounted to less than half that (11%). Completely flipping those numbers around, only 13% of the country was interested in the Anthony Weiner story, but the press devoted 17% of their time to it – more than any other story.

When asked about the amount of coverage of various stories, 63% of respondents said that the Weiner story received too much coverage. Only 7% said that it received too little. Even a majority of Republicans (58%) said that there was too much press attention on Weiner. These numbers, by the way, were nearly identical to those regarding the Sarah Palin bus trip with 58% saying that it had been over covered, including 52% of Republicans.

If you ever wondered why the pressing problems of the day are not being resolved, or even seriously considered, it’s because the media so dependably ignores the issues about which the people are most concerned. And even when they do approach serious subjects they often trivialize them by focusing on tangents like Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, or distort them with partisan special interests like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Tea Party.

This is why the conventional media is losing ground daily to new media, where news consumers can seek out the information they want. And the folks at CNN, Fox, NBC, etc., can expect this trend to continue as long as they favor salacious trivialities over the issues that the American people regard as important.

Neil Cavuto Preaches Economic Apocalypse

Posted by on June 4, 2011 at 11:01 am. NO Comments :

Yesterday marked the end of a bad week on Wall Street. The market declined all of 2.3% for the week. So if you haven’t already escaped to your bunker in Idaho you may want to pack up the kids, the rations, and the gold coins, and hit the road.

As usual, the prophet of the financial End Times is Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. He is to business what Glenn Beck is to…well, everything else. Cavuto spent the opening minutes of his program on Fox News insisting that America was in a state of deep decline and that no recovery has occurred, or will occur. He later shuttled over to his program on Fox Business Network to announce that the economy had “flatlined.”

Does he mean this economy?


A truly fair and balanced analysis of the situation would recognize that there has been a substantial move to the upside since President Obama was inaugurated. Over the past two years there has been a 43% increase. Compare that to the two years prior, during the Bush administration, that saw a 36% falloff.

The primary argument Cavuto is making for the catastrophe he perceives is that the market has been negative for 5 straight weeks. Of course, knowledgeable analysts never draw conclusions from such short periods of time. The chart above demonstrates why that is not considered wise practice. What Cavuto is spinning as a catastrophe is really a mere 5% drop over a long trend of gains.

This is nothing new for Cavuto or Fox News. They consistently hammer on any negative market activity while ignoring the positive. If the market goes down it is because of the looming Obama depression. If it goes up Fox labels it a bear market rally. Fox is so determined to deny Obama credit for anything positive that they once went so far as to claim that the Tea Party was responsible for market a rally – and that was a rally that began weeks before the Tea Party existed.

Later in the program Cavuto engaged in what he regards as a debate, but is really just him interrupting his guest after every four words. Democratic congressman Chaka Fattah put up a valiant fight to present the facts about the employment statistics that show significant increases over the past couple of years despite recent weakness. But Cavuto would have none of it, cutting off Fattah repeatedly to spin the data as negatively as possible while treating his guest with overt rudeness. Seriously…no Democrat should ever go on that show or that network.

The Fox News financial reporting has been nothing but atrocious, They have been predicting disaster since January of 2009. Anyone who took their analysis seriously missed one of the strongest periods of growth in this nation’s history. I sure hope nobody is taking them seriously now.

Alan Grayson Exposes Greedy Media Leeches

Posted by on December 5, 2010 at 2:14 am. 32 Comments :

Ten years ago George W. Bush signed a bill to cut taxes that was so controversial at the time that it included a provision to expire in ten years. It was regarded by many as too costly and likely to produce massive deficits. Ten years later the worst fears of the critics were borne out and the nation is struggling under its largest debt burden in history.

Somehow Republicans are still defending those tax cuts and demanding that they be extended. Democrats have conceded to extend them for 98% of the American people excluding only income over $250,000. But that isn’t enough for the GOP. They are presently holding the cuts for the vast majority hostage on behalf of the wealthy 2%. It is an unconscionable and irresponsible position that reveals their inflexibility and greed.

Congressman Alan Grayson took to the floor of the House last week to address this issue and delivered a brilliant and damning critique that explains what’s behind the Republican obstructionism.

Grayson: [Y]ou have to wonder why they persist in this mania, this obsession of theirs that we need to have tax cuts for the rich when the economy is flat on its back and unemployment is almost 10%. I think I have the answer. The answer turns out to be very simple.

They want tax cuts for the rich because they want a tax cut for themselves. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at the people who are really in charge, the ones who actually run the Republican party.

With that Rep. Grayson ran through a list of wealthy right-wing media hogs who will benefit handsomely from the positions they are taking on taxes:

Greedy Bastard Annual Income Tax Benefit
Rush Limbaugh $58,700,000 $2,700,000
Glenn Beck $33,000,000 $1,500,000
Sean Hannity $22,000,000 $1,000,000
Bill O’Reilly $20,000,000 $914,000
Sarah Palin $14,000,000 $638,000
Newt Gingrich $5,000,000 $250,000
George W. Bush $4,200,000 $187,000

These are just some of the more prominent beneficiaries of the Republican plan to give $700 Billion to the richest people in America. The Republicans, who can’t bring themselves to extend unemployment benefits while the unemployment rate is nearing 10%, have no problem with helping those poor millionaires and billionaires to struggle through these tough times. And it is no coincidence that many of the rightist advocates of this millionaire giveaway are wealthy television and radio stars or politicians themselves.

This is one of those times when words like greedy, selfish, and even shameless, simply do not suffice. But Rep. Grayson has provided as good an explanation for what is happening this week in Congress as any I’ve heard.

Fox Nation Scare Tactics: Armed IRS Agents To Enforce Obamacare

Posted by on March 23, 2010 at 3:53 pm. 16 Comments :

Fox Nation IRS ArmyIn a fit of psychotic bluster, the folks at Fox Nation have posted an article with a headline that was manufactured from whole cloth. There is nothing in their reporting, or the column to which they linked, that remotely implied the message in this headline:

“IRS Hiring Thousands of Armed Tax Agents to Enforce Obamacare.”

The source for the Fox Nationalists is a column in Tucker Carlson’s right-wing Daily Caller. You might expect that Fox could rely on Carlson to support their hallucinatory journalism. After all, Carlson is a Fox News employee. But the article in the Caller, while misleading on it’s own, doesn’t go anywhere near the Fox misinterpretation.

The Caller’s headline was somewhat less dishonest: “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws.” It does not make a declaration of fact that agents are actually being hired, only that the IRS is looking into it. But more importantly, there is no mention of these agents being armed. In all likelihood, any new hires are going to be accountants with calculators, not mercenaries with machine guns. That, however, didn’t stop the Caller from posting an accompanying photo of heavily armed soldiers in combat gear who have nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And, of course, Fox Nation re-posted the same photo.

The Caller’s article is filled with falsehoods. Anyone who actually bothers to read the article will notice that there is no substantiation of its claim that Democrats are working with the IRS to hire new agents. The only confirmation comes from Republicans supplying their own speculation as to staffing requirements.

It is fair to assume that expanding efforts to collect revenue would require additional personnel. However, the article notes that the new hiring is aimed at collecting taxes unrelated to the health care bill. So are Republicans and the Fox Nationalists taking the position that tax cheats should not be pursued or held accountable? Should law abiding Americans have to shoulder the burden for these deadbeats? Yes, that’s exactly their position. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee even issued a report that criticized the administration for proposing $8 billion to fund tax compliance measures. It seems to me that an $8 billion allocation to recover an estimated $300 billion in delinquent taxes is a pretty good return on investment and an effective way to reduce budget deficits.

The content of the article in the Caller is misleading in many respects, but the Fox Nation version is delusional. It states flatly that the IRS is hiring “armed” tax agents. It states flatly that these new agents will be dispatched to “enforce Obamacare.” Neither of those statements are substantiated and they aren’t even in the linked article. Yet the Fox Nationalists post the photo of soldiers in combat attire, weapons at the ready, deployed in a search and destroy posture.

The obvious intent of Fox is to frighten their congregation of Psycho-chicken Littles into believing that the “revenuers” are advancing on them to take their money and send them to FEMA camps where they will be forced to have abortions and marry gay socialists.

After struggling for fourteen months to derail the President’s agenda, and failing, Fox is upping the ante. They want people to be so afraid that they will fortify their bunkers, stockpile weapons, hoard rations, buy gold (brought to you by Glenn Beck), and prepare for Armageddon. And the way they advance that goal is by disseminating lies like this story from the scare-meisters at Fox Nation.

Boob BombsUpdate: Fox News continues to pour on the fear mongering. They are now reprising a story originally posted at Fox Nation almost two months: Boob Bombs! Terrorists Could Use Explosives in Breast Implants to Crash Planes.

Back in February the story was sourced to the ultra-wingnut WorldNetDaily web site. This time Fox is sourcing it to The Sun, Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid, but, hilariously, the article quotes “terrorist expert Joseph Farah.” In fact, Farah is no terrorist expert, he is the publisher of WorldNetDaily. The propaganda comes full circle.

It seems that they are just going to repeat this story every few months until either people are sufficiently terrified of titties, or until Al Qaeda decides to give it a try. I maintain my position that this could have a devastating impact on air travel. As I said in February:

We would need to start including Scarlett Johansson in our profiling criteria. And because the same explosive devices could be inserted in the buttocks, Jennifer Lopez would have to be added to the no-fly list.

Update II: All of this is reminiscent of the hysteria Glenn Beck tried to trump up over what he said was a civilian national security force that Obama was supposedly amassing to assault him and his congregation. As it turns out it was just an initiative to expand the peace corps and similar organizations.

[Also…] FactChect.org debunked the claim of IRS hiring thousands of agents.

Stay scared America.

Thar’s Gold In Glenn Beck’s Shills

Posted by on December 14, 2009 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

To accuse Glenn Beck of being a greedy, capitalist, manipulative, profiteering, hustler would probably be received as a compliment by him. He spreads the marketing on pretty thick with TV, radio, magazines, books, movies, and personal appearances. And all of these self-aggrandizing ventures are hawked shamelessly on his multiple media platforms.

Recently, however, Beck has come under fire for his promotion of products and services offered by his advertisers. This sort of hucksterism is problematic because it makes it impossible to tell if the product endorsements are genuine or if they are payoffs to keep the advertiser happy. That obvious conflict of interest seems to escape Beck. What’s worse, shilling for products in this manner can result in the spokesperson deliberately misleading his audience in order to create or enhance the market for a product.

And that is precisely what Beck is being accused of doing on behalf of his gold advertisers. During the course of his programs on radio and TV, Beck is painting a picture of America, and the world, as teetering on the ledge of catastrophe. He insists that the economy is in freefall and the dollar is collapsing. He has even floated conspiracy theories about the dollar being replaced by a new world currency. All of these frightful predictions are encouragements to his gullible disciples to protect their assets by converting them to gold.

Now, even Beck’s employer, Fox News, has registered some concern about Beck’s relationship with his sponsors. Joel Cheatwood, Senior Vice President of Development at Fox, says that the network’s legal department asked Beck’s representatives for clarification about his work for Goldline International. The response was that Beck is not a paid spokesman. That’s fortunate because Fox’s official policy on the matter is that…

“Fox News prohibits any on-air talent from endorsing products or serving as a product spokesperson.”

So how do they explain this:

Glenn Beck for GoldlineThe Goldline web site has prominently featured Beck endorsing their products. The footnote referenced on the ad identified Beck explicitly as a “paid spokesman.” However, it no longer does so. The designation was recently changed to read “radio sponsor.” And concurrent with that, both Goldline and Fox are now claiming that Beck was never a paid spokesman in the first place. It was all just a big misunderstanding. Never mind the fact that Beck has appeared in specially produced videos touting Goldline.

The doomsday gold rush is a staple for Beck’s media empire. At least four of his current advertisers are gold dealers (Goldline, Superior Gold Group, Investment Rarities, and Rosland Capital). Granted, Beck is having a hard time attracting advertisers since he called President Obama a racist. The remaining ads are almost all for conservative publications or products and services exploiting one crisis or another. And this is not just a Beck phenomena. Goldline and other gold traders are also pitched by such financial wizards as Mark Levin, Dennis Miller, Fred Thompson, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larson, Michael Smerconish, Monica Crowley, and G. Gordon Liddy.

If the world doesn’t come to an end soon, Beck’s viewers are going to be very disappointed – and poor. Gold prices have cratered in the past month, losing more than $100.00 per ounce. And the worst thing that can happen from the perspective of Beck, and those who foolishly took his investment advice, is for the economy to recover. And therein lies the problem with regard to conflict of interest.

In order for Beck and his coterie to prosper, the economy must not. Beck has a financial stake in the nation’s economic affairs turning south. He also has a personal stake in that he does not want to be seen as having been wrong about his dire predictions. So his programs’ advertising, his investment portfolio, and his reputation all require that our country fail. Could that have something to with Beck’s relentless barrage of lectures about how the country is going to hell and it is time to build an Ark? Could it have something to do with his rallying cry for God, guns, and of course, gold?

Could it? Could be.

Glenn Beck’s Sermon On Shared Sacrifice Will Make You Sick

Posted by on November 25, 2009 at 12:47 pm. 2 Comments :

There’s no doubt about it. The United States economy is still reeling from the effects of one of the worst recessions in its history. It is piling up massive debt and struggling to produce even modest growth and job creation. At the same time it is embroiled in two wars overseas that are costly on matters both fiscal and fatal.

In response, Congressman David Obey floated a proposal that a new tax on high income earners be imposed to cover the costs associated with any escalation of activities in Afghanistan. This sensible suggestion is an attempt to restore responsibility to wartime economics. If the nation is going to engage in an expensive adventure that puts its citizens lives at risk, it ought to be willing to ask those who remain at home to chip in and insure that the military and personal needs of our soldiers are met. It’s called shared sacrifice.

From Glenn Beck’s perspective, however, this is just another political maneuver by Democrats to hasten the socialistic utopia Beck imagines they are plotting. He insists that it is a continuance of President Obama’s campaign to redistribute the wealth. In a way, Beck is right. It is an initiative to redistribute wealth from chickenhawks like Beck to soldiers on the battlefield. And Beck will have none of that.

In his patented drool-dripping diction, Beck commences reasonably enough by declaring that war “should qualify as a shared sacrifice.” But then he veers into irrational demands that strain any effort to understand.

“What sacrifice are you willing to share? Shave your armpits, sign up for a tour of duty and share the sacrifice.”

Is he directing this exclusively to women? Or are all recruits expected to shave under their arms these days? It may be best to set that aside for the time being and focus, not on armpits, but on Beck’s call to arms. What is notable about Beck berating others to enlist is that he never did so. Not in his youth, nor for the current wars in which he claims to believe. Beck was 37 years old in 2001. He could have signed up after 9/11, and during any of the five years thereafter. But apparently shared sacrifice was secondary to seeking radio stardom.

Beck is not only opposed to sharing sacrifices by spreading the costs of war to all citizens, he believes that the sacrifice Americans ought to be making is in the area of their own well being. He argues that domestic initiatives like health care should be curtailed in favor of war funding. And his specific approach to this theory is particularly grotesque – and false:

“I don’t see Americans dying in the streets as they’re waiting in line to the hospital because they’ve been shot in Detroit. They get in to a hospital. You know where I do see them dying? Afghanistan. Nobody died because they didn’t have health care. Nobody!”

I’m quite certain that Beck is telling the truth when he says that he doesn’t “see Americans dying in the streets.” He certainly wouldn’t see them in the streets of his gated community in Connecticut. A media celebrity who earns tens of millions of dollars every year is not likely to encounter many shooting victims in urban Detroit. But even more egregious is his claim that nobody has died because they didn’t have health care. It would not have taken much research to discover this report published by Harvard Medical School just a little over a month ago:

Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance
“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

Glenn Beck is a wealthy, well-insured, elitist who has never served in the military. Yet he is comfortable lecturing everyone else on what it means to share sacrifice. He is content to allow thousands of Americans to die here at home – ten times the number every year than have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in eight years – so that he doesn’t have to pay a little more of his millions in taxes. And then he has the gall to belittle others for failing to show due consideration for the troops.

An equally disturbing aspect of this is that, in pursuit of his greedy selfishness, Beck will deliberately misinform his legions of deluded disciples about the facts related to health insurance deficiencies and abuses. With his proclivity for purposeful deception he joins his Fox colleague, Bill O’Reilly, who still insists that there are no homeless veterans.

The only lessons to be learned from Beck’s sermon on shared sacrifice are sadistic, shameless, self-serving, specious, and quite literally sickening.

The Fox Frame: Obama’s Stock Market Voodoo

Posted by on October 14, 2009 at 6:36 pm. 8 Comments :

After months of turmoil, the stock market has clawed its way back to levels that haven’t been seen for a year. Passing the 10,000 mark would ordinarily be perceived as good news by most market analysts and millions of investors, many of whom are relying on market performance for their future security and retirement.

But Fox News, the network that celebrates America losing the Olympics, and laments the President being honored with a Nobel Peace Prize, sees things differently.

Last March, Fox News was the first to report that a declining Dow was unambiguously the fault of Obama, who had been in office for a little more than a month.

Fox declared the declines “Obama’s Bear Market.” They illustrated their coverage with colorful charts highlighting the foreboding financial trends that were about to sink all future hopes of America.

Unfortunately for Fox, later the same month the market began what would become an unprecedented turnaround. It would rise 21% in 16 days – a feat that has not been recorded in modern stock market history

Undaunted, Fox came up with a unique explanation for why Wall Street would suddenly seem to be reacting positively to a Muslim, communist, alien president. It was the Tea Parties:

“Call it a tea party rally. Wall Street’s sure partying, up six weeks in a row. The bulls came out about the same time these guys started to shout.”

In April the market continued its winning ways. This led Fox News to seek a new excuse for good fortune that was clearly driving them nuts. I mean, nothing positive could possibly be attributed to this president, so there must be another explanation. They hit on the notion of a bear market rally, which they then turned into a persistent talking point.

And capping off the Fox News campaign to deny Obama any credit for the still advancing market, having now risen about 40% in seven months, Fox has raised the stakes and brought in their “A” game. They are now, in all seriousness, proposing that what we are seeing here are the effects of the Bush recovery.

The same folks who were insisting that Obama was responsible for every negative occurrence – from suicide bombings in Islamabad to pimples on teenagers – from the day after his illegitimate inauguration, now assert that Bush, from whom financial duties were stripped when the economy went south in August of 2008, that Bush somehow deserves recognition for his role in the market comeback.

To summarize, if something bad happens it doesn’t matter how early in his term it is, Obama is the owner and the cause of it. If something good happens it wouldn’t matter if it were the middle of his second term, he is merely a lucky bystander. It was probably something Reagan did thirty years ago.

Are even Fox News viewers stupid enough to fall for this? Please tell me they aren’t.

Fox News Is Heavily Invested In A Bear Market Rally

Posted by on March 27, 2009 at 1:23 pm. 2 Comments :

From March 10, 2009 to March 26, 2009, the Dow Jones has advanced 1,377 points. That’s a 21% increase in 16 days – a feat that has not been recorded in modern stock market history. Yet despite the right-wing howling over weak market performance since President Obama’s inauguration two months ago, there has been no subsequent praise for the more positive turn taking place. To the contrary, the right’s biggest megaphone is broadcasting failure on a daily basis. These are all recent quotes from Fox News:

  • Sheppard Smith: We’ve been in what I guess a lot of people figure is a bear market rally, though nobody really knows, it sort of feels like a bear market rally to most of the experts. I don’t know. But that’s what they’re saying.
  • Tobin Smith: By definition, this is a bear market rally.
  • Damon Vickers: We could have a rally that could take us up to 8,000. It wouldn’t change the fact that we were still in a bear market and that the trend was still down.
  • Peter McKay: The stock market bear market rally resumed on Tuesday.
  • Gary B. Smith: My primary concern is that the markets rose straight up this past week. Often, this is what we see in a bear market rally.
  • Neil Cavuto: What if, playing the other side of that coin, the market is telling us something of substance here, and that this does represent more than just that presumed – presumed bear market rally?

Note to Cavuto: You and your network are the biggest promoters of the bear market presumptions. When Obama spoke gloomily about very real dark days for the economy, Fox berated him for his negativity and implied that such talk would lead to even worse times. Now that there has been bona fide cause for optimism, it is Fox who is gloomy and negative. This is really just their way of joining in with the crowd that is hoping for Obama to fail. Fox News is heavily invested in failure.

What’s Up With CNBC?

Posted by on March 12, 2009 at 11:50 am. 2 Comments :

The cable news wars have been raging for years. But for the most part the combatants have been confined to the big three: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. Headline News and CNBC have been regarded as niche players that weren’t really on the front lines.

All of a sudden CNBC has become the most talked about cable news network, just as the nation has inaugurated a new president and tries to weather a fierce economic storm. Much of the attention is couched in ridicule. Rick Santelli’s rant, that cast a bunch of elite commodities traders as emblematic of average Americans, was only taken seriously by the likes of Michele Malkin and her mush-brained followers. Jim Cramer was exposed as the clown that he is by a much better and more professional clown, Jon Stewart.

The backwash of this publicity parade is a boost for CNBC’s ratings and visibility. But why is it happening now?

CNBC has long been a friend to the business community. Its reporting rarely alerted viewers to imminent crises (like the the one we are enduring now) or corporate malfeasance (like Enron and Madoff). The anchors were openly chummy with CEOs, whom they courted for access, and some, like Larry Kudlow, were overtly partisan. CNBC elevated the art of bloviating by introducing the Octo-Pundit, where as many as eight self-styled experts yelled at each other from their respective video cages.

But with a lineup like Fox News and current events that favored their niche, they still needed a little extra push to get the recognition they felt they deserved. So along comes Santelli and Cramer and a concerted effort to expand their conservative profile.

Despite the blathering of Bill O’Reilly, the NBC News division has never been left wing. MSNBC was once the cable home of Michael Savage, Oliver North, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and it still features Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan. The rise of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow occurred strictly because of their success, not ideology. Nevertheless, in the past NBC has demonstrated its cowardice in the face of criticism. They are the network that canceled their own number one rated program, Phil Donahue, for fear of being tagged anti-war.

By ramping up the rightist rhetoric on CNBC, NBC News is attempting to harvest popular outrage from both ends of the political field. They can continue to throw liberals a bone with their primetime MSNBC schedule, while cozying up to their natural right wing allies on the business-oriented CNBC. And neither network will have its programming muddied with ideological balance. As an ancillary benefit, NBC will try to tamp down the criticism they receive from the right by pointing to their new heroes of ham-handed conservatism.

In the end, CNBC just hopes to siphon a few viewers away from Fox News, and to smother the new born Fox Business Network in its crib. Unfortunately, the way they have chosen to do that is to emulate the Fox model which is focused on aggressive conservatism, and hysterical, paranoid personalities. That won’t work for CNBC in the long run because Fox viewers are too cult driven. They won’t abandon the comfort of that with which they are familiar for a subsidiary of that which their Fox masters have convinced them is evil.

Now, more than ever, CNBC needs to concentrate on providing responsible financial journalism. By making themselves truly indispensable in the field for which they claim expertise, they will be far more likely to succeed and to serve the interests of their viewers.