how bad is our economy?

[yeahwho]

Maybe that itching feeling we're getting is justified, according to Rep. Kanjorski (D-PA) in Sept '08 the financial and political system was 3 hours away from collapse (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/9/234340/6189/142/695504).

[saz]

the state of the us economy is much worse than the political and economic establishment is letting on.

[b i o n i c]

my sprint stock doubled from the original purchase price today(y)

[kaiser soze]

Citigroup is at $1 down from $57 in 2006

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Citigroup-shares-touch-1-first/story.aspx?guid={C0D2311F-8C0D-4A96-9928-FF6511A2962F}

The bail out was brought up before Obama's presidency, just saying.

[RobMoney$]

I'm curious to see how much credit Obama gets for fixing the economy once the market corrects itself.

It's absolutely impossible to ignore the fact that the market does not like Obama's actions and plans.
The Dow has gone from 12,000 to under 7,000 since Obama took a permanent lead in the polls.
Does that automatically mean the market is right? Not exactly, but it would be foolish to ignore the market and the fact that there is more worry and more uneasiness about the future now than when Obama took office.

[DroppinScience]

I'm curious to see how much credit Obama gets for fixing the economy once the market corrects itself.

It's absolutely impossible to ignore the fact that the market does not like Obama's actions and plans.
The Dow has gone from 12,000 to under 7,000 since Obama took a permanent lead in the polls.
Does that automatically mean the market is right? Not exactly, but it would be foolish to ignore the market and the fact that there is more worry and more uneasiness about the future now than when Obama took office.

You got your financial wisdom from CNBC (http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/03/05), I see.

[RobMoney$]

That's your link, so I guess that's where you get your financial wisdom. The Daily Show, right genius.

Not quite sure why you had to be condescending about my "financial wisdom" as if I have none?

[Schmeltz]

it would be foolish to ignore the market and the fact that there is more worry and more uneasiness about the future now than when Obama took office.


It would be equally as foolish to assume that this is because Obama is now in office, as your post seems to imply. Something tells me that the Dow would have plunged no matter who had taken the lead in the polls, and for all we know it might have gone even lower if it had been McCain-Palin. Obama's bailout plans are pretty much in lockstep with those implemented in all the other major economies from China to Britain, so far as I can tell, and if the global market isn't reacting well to the global strategy than it doesn't seem reasonable to conclude it's because Obama happens to be the one trying to fix the mess Bush created.

Moreover, if there's a lesson to be learned from all of this it's that the market is emphatically not the self-regulatory, independent organ that conservatives and libertarians so religiously believe in. Left to its own devices it cannibalizes itself and collapses inward, causing widespread hardship for the majority of economic actors. Only when the market is properly regulated and the transactions of economic actors are overseen by responsible and capable administrators does it actually work to the benefit of everyone. It's not going to correct itself independent of what we do because it's nothing more than a reflection of what we do anyway. So we have to work to correct it together.

[DroppinScience]

That's your link, so I guess that's where you get your financial wisdom. The Daily Show, right genius.


That Daily Show clips speaks for itself. "Mad Money" Cramer says you'd be a complete idiot to take your money out of Bear-Sterns because it's not going anywhere. One week later, they crash. Economists left and right throughout 2008 were insisting the worst was over and then lo and behold comes the September 2008 financial meltdown. The ineptness could really not be spelled out any more clear than last night's Daily Show.

[RobMoney$]

It would be equally as foolish to assume that this is because Obama is now in office, as your post seems to imply.

That wasn't what I was implying at all.
That's why I said "Does that automatically mean the market is right? Not exactly,".
People don't buy or sell a stock based on what Obama is doing. They do it based on the prospects of the company's cash flow and the risks involved.
Now, that being said,...
American financial companies deserve a huge part of the blame.
The Bush Administration is deserving of blame for creating the bailout culture.
The Obama Administration is deserving of blame because their huge government spending policies are going to greatly exacerbate the problem.
When you know taxes are going to be higher, that negatively affects earnings and we know that costs are going to be higher (energy taxes, pro-union, heightened regulatory costs, etc.), that negatively affects earnings. I mean what part of Obama's agenda positively affects the outlook for corporate earnings? He's not exactly helping, is he?

Suggesting the market plunged solely on Obama's financial policies is ridiculous, and it's the very reason why anyone who suggests the economy was saved by Obama's policies once the market corrects itself is equally ridiculous. I assume you saw the 634b he now wants for his healthcare program?

My point is that although he's not solely to blame, his policies are definetly contributing to the problem.
I mean how far exactly did the Dow plunge the day after his speech last month?

Something tells me that the Dow would have plunged no matter who had taken the lead in the polls, and for all we know it might have gone even lower if it had been McCain-Palin.

Speculation.

Obama's bailout plans are pretty much in lockstep with those implemented in all the other major economies from China to Britain, so far as I can tell, and if the global market isn't reacting well to the global strategy than it doesn't seem reasonable to conclude it's because Obama happens to be the one trying to fix the mess Bush created.

Out of all the things about Obama-cons that I don't like, this is the one that gets me the most. They refuse to acknowledge that Obama has played ANY part in this chaos.
In mid-February we were pretty much through earnings season and had a good idea of what the corporate outlook was, yet the S&P 500 has fallen 100 points since then and the Dow has fallen 1200 points.
The biggest news during that time was the various Obama initiatives and you're saying that didn't matter to the market?


Moreover, if there's a lesson to be learned from all of this it's that the market is emphatically not the self-regulatory, independent organ that conservatives and libertarians so religiously believe in. Left to its own devices it cannibalizes itself and collapses inward, causing widespread hardship for the majority of economic actors. Only when the market is properly regulated and the transactions of economic actors are overseen by responsible and capable administrators does it actually work to the benefit of everyone. It's not going to correct itself independent of what we do because it's nothing more than a reflection of what we do anyway. So we have to work to correct it together.


You don't think that economic, tax and regulatory policy are concerning the market?

[RobMoney$]

That Daily Show clips speaks for itself. "Mad Money" Cramer says you'd be a complete idiot to take your money out of Bear-Sterns because it's not going anywhere. One week later, they crash. Economists left and right throughout 2008 were insisting the worst was over and then lo and behold comes the September 2008 financial meltdown. The ineptness could really not be spelled out any more clear than last night's Daily Show.

Dude, seriously.
You're actually admitting that you form your opinions about the economy from The Daily Show?

[DroppinScience]

Dude, seriously.
You're actually admitting that you form your opinions about the economy from The Daily Show?

I could do far worse than "The Daily Show." I mean, they have won two Peabody awards for excellence in radio and television broadcasting, so they're quite respected. You apparently think Michelle Malkin is an intellectual giant, so you have no room to talk.

Anyways, I presume you didn't watch the clip, so I'll tell you what they did. They showed verbatim clips of CNBC anchors and other random economic pundits caught in the act of making what are now known as the world's stupid, most out of touch economic forecast comments in modern history. They counter it with news that showed their predictions to not only be wrong, but wildly inept. And you've bought these jokers' lines completely.

[RobMoney$]

I could do far worse than "The Daily Show." I mean, they have won two Peabody awards for excellence in radio and television broadcasting, so they're quite respected. You apparently think Michelle Malkin is an intellectual giant, so you have no room to talk.

Anyways, I presume you didn't watch the clip, so I'll tell you what they did. They showed verbatim clips of CNBC anchors and other random economic pundits caught in the act of making what are now known as the world's stupid, most out of touch economic forecast comments in modern history. They counter it with news that showed their predictions to not only be wrong, but wildly inept. And you've bought these jokers' lines completely.


1. I don't watch the Daily Show. See my comment about it in the Daily Show thread. Your account of the video is exactly what I just posted why I think the show is lame.

2. I got about half-way through your video and closed it because I failed to see what it had to do with my point or why you linked it.

Here's what I said:

I'm curious to see how much credit Obama gets for fixing the economy once the market corrects itself.

It's absolutely impossible to ignore the fact that the market does not like Obama's actions and plans.
The Dow has gone from 12,000 to under 7,000 since Obama took a permanent lead in the polls.
Does that automatically mean the market is right? Not exactly, but it would be foolish to ignore the market and the fact that there is more worry and more uneasiness about the future now than when Obama took office.


What Jim Cramer's untrue financial forecasts had to do with my point about Obama not deserving of the credit that people like you will surely heap on him once Wall St starts rebounding from this, I fail to see so I stopped it halfway thru.
It's like you've been waiting for a debate with me for weeks now to link that video and you figured this thread was as good a place as any. It really had nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever.

3. I made a thread about one article Malkin wrote. I hardly think that qualifies as me being an avid follower of her column. Why are you continually trying to disparage my point of view or my knowledge of the market altogether?
It's like your trying to discredit my opinion based on some weak argument you made against me months ago, and that's the only thing you have to use against me in this thread. It's reeks of desperation really.
You're all "Oh yeah, well you once linked a Malkin article!!OOHHHH BURN!"
An attack on the messenger is usually done when one cannot attack the message. You're attacking a messenger (Malkin) months after I even made the thread about an article I found of hers that I thought was interesting?
WOW.

[Schmeltz]

The Obama Administration is deserving of blame because their huge government spending policies are going to greatly exacerbate the problem.

Speculation. Why are the Japanese, Chinese, French, Germans, British, and Canadians doing exactly the same thing as the Americans - performing massive cash infusions (ie what I assume you mean by "government spending policies") into their own financial sectors? Is every single one of the major global economic powers bent on further ruining their own economies? How exactly is increased government spending, enacted to replace decreased consumer spending, supposed to "greatly exacerbate" the problem caused by... well... decreased consumer spending? I will grant that the general market reaction has not been immediately positive, but then again the origins of the crisis were not immediate either - rather they were years in the making, and so any solution proposed to problems of this magnitude will likewise require a similar timespan to reflect corresponding gains. This is common sense. Assuming the fledgling Obama administration's policies will never work because they are not working fast enough to satisfy you, right now is just talking out your ass.

When you know taxes are going to be higher, that negatively affects earnings and we know that costs are going to be higher (energy taxes, pro-union, heightened regulatory costs, etc.), that negatively affects earnings.

Actually taxes do not affect earnings, they affect profit margins. Taxes are not levied on expected income, they are levied on recorded income. Companies are cutting production and jobs now because they anticipate lower earnings now and in the future based on their projected business models, not because they anticipate having to pay higher taxes. Are you actually arguing that companies would not be cutting jobs if somebody else was in office and charging them lower taxes? This crisis is ripping through every country in the world, and correspondingly companies in every corner of the world are slashing jobs to reduce expenses to sustain profit margins - hell, some of them are doing it just to sustain basic functionality. This would have happened no matter who was in charge in the USA. You are grasping at straws.

Suggesting the market plunged solely on Obama's financial policies is ridiculous, and it's the very reason why anyone who suggests the economy was saved by Obama's policies once the market corrects itself is equally ridiculous.

But nobody is saying "the economy was saved." Where the hell did you pull that out of? What people are saying is "give Obama's policies time." He's had a matter of days to correct a problem stretching back years. It might take half a decade for Obama's policies to significantly affect the market; this is totally uncharted territory, without any recent or relevant historical precedent. And again, as I said, the market is not going to correct itself. We are going to correct the market, as an informed and active public and as fully involved economic actors. This is what Obama's policies are designed to do, and it is going to take time for them to take effect. Who gives a shit how far the Dow plunged after one of the many, many speeches he will give over his term as President? Does the Dow react exclusively to what the White House has to say, or are there actually innumerable other factors involved in the fluctuation of the stock market? Are you suggesting that Barack Obama is responsible for global market direction based on what he says in any given speech? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?

If you want to pretend that Obama's policies are directly contributing to the downward swing of stock market value, you're going to have to come up with something better than "well he gave a speech the day before." This is laughable. Try harder.

You don't think that economic, tax and regulatory policy are concerning the market?

Actually if you read my post you will find that I said exactly the opposite. You are the one insisting that the market will "correct itself," presumably without any need for interference through economic, tax, and regulatory legislation. I am arguing that these are precisely the mechanisms through which we as a society correct our markets, which do not act as indepedent organs or institutions to begin with, and never have. Don't put words in my mouth.

[yeahwho]

Actually if you read my post you will find that I said exactly the opposite. You are the one insisting that the market will "correct itself," presumably without any need for interference through economic, tax, and regulatory legislation. I am arguing that these are precisely the mechanisms through which we as a society correct our markets, which do not act as indepedent organs or institutions to begin with, and never have. Don't put words in my mouth.

All of your above responses are excellent, but like you say the crux of your argument is leaving the markets alone would of created the very collapse that I started this thread about, we're not quite on life support yet, but without some serious intervention from our elected officials, we will be in a NY second. No doubt about it.

Though we have no recent history on our current economic crisis, we have been sick before (http://zfacts.com/p/318.html).

[DroppinScience]

1. I don't watch the Daily Show. See my comment about it in the Daily Show thread. Your account of the video is exactly what I just posted why I think the show is lame.

2. I got about half-way through your video and closed it because I failed to see what it had to do with my point or why you linked it.

Here's what I said:


What Jim Cramer's untrue financial forecasts had to do with my point about Obama not deserving of the credit that people like you will surely heap on him once Wall St starts rebounding from this, I fail to see so I stopped it halfway thru.
It's like you've been waiting for a debate with me for weeks now to link that video and you figured this thread was as good a place as any. It really had nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever.

You may wish to review Stewart's whole segment on financial advice for the March 4 episode because the same people who made stunningly embarrassing financial forecasts are also directly connecting the falling Dow Jones Index with Obama taking the oath of office as some sort of financial vote of no-confidence when the truth of the matter is there are so many independent factors that go into the Dow that the current administration is irrelevant. The Dow will rise and fall at any given time.

Not only that, since the economic crisis was several years in the making, fixing it will take a long time too (as Schmeltz said). It's impossible to determine whether Obama's policies will sink and swim from just 44 days in office. Judging the economy based on a mere 6 weeks and giving a verdict is grossly premature.

[yeahwho]

You may wish to review Stewart's whole segment on financial advice for the March 4 episode because the same people who made stunningly embarrassing financial forecasts are also directly connecting the falling Dow Jones Index with Obama taking the oath of office as some sort of financial vote of no-confidence when the truth of the matter is there are so many independent factors that go into the Dow that the current administration is irrelevant. The Dow will rise and fall at any given time.

Not only that, since the economic crisis was several years in the making, fixing it will take a long time too (as Schmeltz said). It's impossible to determine whether Obama's policies will sink and swim from just 44 days in office. Judging the economy based on a mere 6 weeks and giving a verdict is grossly premature.

Yeah I just posted that Daily clip again over on another thread... I guess I should of reviewed it.

[RobMoney$]

You may wish to review Stewart's whole segment on financial advice for the March 4 episode because the same people who made stunningly embarrassing financial forecasts are also directly connecting the falling Dow Jones Index with Obama taking the oath of office as some sort of financial vote of no-confidence when the truth of the matter is there are so many independent factors that go into the Dow that the current administration is irrelevant. The Dow will rise and fall at any given time.


Jon Stewart...the comedian?
You're suggesting that I review Jon Stewart the comedian's segment on the economy? L.O.f'n L.

May I suggest that you review an article from an actual economist?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html



MARCH 6, 2009
Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow
A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism.
By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=MICHAEL+J.+BOSKIN&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.
Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.
To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional "resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).
Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital, the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit.
Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2% of the population, but many more will at some point be in these brackets.
As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better.
Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid permanently higher prices.
The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military. We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.
The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.
A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget -- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that provide a road map to greater effectiveness.
The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health, pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers.
Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.
New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.
From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous analysis and a careful reading of history.
Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.
On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.

Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.



Not only that, since the economic crisis was several years in the making, fixing it will take a long time too (as Schmeltz said). It's impossible to determine whether Obama's policies will sink and swim from just 44 days in office. Judging the economy based on a mere 6 weeks and giving a verdict is grossly premature.

That's true. Obama never really voted on anything the short time he was in the Senate, so it would be totally unfair to blame him for a mere 40some days he's been in the White House.

[saz]

whoa, another blowhard right-wing conservative economist from the wall street journal, and exxon board member who subscribes to the fantasy of the free market and that it can regulate itself, all the while alluding to another right-wing fantasy that the obama administration will bring about the destruction of america.

the same wall street journal that defends the greedy corporate whores of wall street.

[RobMoney$]

Ahh, there's the old stand-by "Attack the messenger" retort we're soo familiar with.
Care to dispute any of his opinions, or are you just going to disparage him?
Any economics professor at Stanford has forgotten more about economics than Jon Stewart, Lambert, you, or I will ever know.

Edit:
Just looked him up and it seems he got his BA in 1967, MA in '68, and PhD in '71 from Cal-Berkeley, so we know he's probably a tree-hugging pot smoker.
http://www.hoover.org/bios/boskin.html

[Burnout18]

That Daily Show clips speaks for itself. "Mad Money" Cramer says you'd be a complete idiot to take your money out of Bear-Sterns because it's not going anywhere. One week later, they crash. Economists left and right throughout 2008 were insisting the worst was over and then lo and behold comes the September 2008 financial meltdown. The ineptness could really not be spelled out any more clear than last night's Daily Show.

ok. Jim Cramer has made a shitload of money for a shitload of people. He was wrong about bear sterns and BAC but doesn't mean he has shit for brains like the daily show made it seem.

but the daily show... we're talking about the daily show? Shit, I love the daily show, its a great collection of comics and writers who use video clips to make people look stupid, but come on; you cannot be seriously tellin us that you get your insight into the financial world from the Daily show.

And i i'm not just directing that at you,,, i have seen too many daily show refrences brought up in a serious context on this forum before and it makes me shake my head. Stewart himself hates when people say thier only source of news is his show.

Obama will try to help the american people, even if that hurts wall street and investors.... So it's what you believe in or what you want, and depends who you are... if you are older like my parents, and what is in your 401k is more important to you then if unemployment is at 8.1% then yea your going to not be happy about obama.

[yeahwho]

ok. Jim Cramer has made a shitload of money for a shitload of people. He was wrong about bear sterns and BAC but doesn't mean he has shit for brains like the daily show made it seem.

And i i'm not just directing that at you,,, i have seen too many daily show refrences brought up in a serious context on this forum before and it makes me shake my head. Stewart himself hates when people say thier only source of news is his show.

I find CNBC as inept at forecasting my finances as Jon Stewart. I've never taken the advise of any television business analyst serious. I have never even considered to use any of their advise as part of a decision balance with my $$$.

I would use Jon Stewarts' skewered view of the world as a barometer for investment before I would take advice from any of these television hawkers. They really suck, I'm so happy I never paid them any mind.

[QueenAdrock]

i have seen too many daily show refrences brought up in a serious context on this forum before and it makes me shake my head. Stewart himself hates when people say thier only source of news is his show.

I don't know many people who use just the Daily Show for their news, though I'm sure they're out there. But with that being said, why can't the Daily Show be cited? They don't just make up the news (outside of obvious and funny references/photoshop jobs); they report on other shows, other news clips, most of the time bringing up points that the mainstream media won't touch. They report on the legitimate news and then use sarcasm and wit to make fun of it. He's the only one I saw that seriously showed in depth everything that Bush said he would never fathom doing as a "compassionate conservative" candidate of 2000 and comparing it to what President Bush of 2001-2009 actually DID. Why can't that be brought up in a serious context?

With that being said, DS didn't say that he gets his financial insight from Daily Show anywhere in his posts. He was showing the correlation between people who made shitty predictions in the past now saying that the Dow falling is Obama's fault; if they were wrong in the past (on major things), there's a good chance they're wrong now, too. I think it's a valid point too. A lot of people have lost credibility with all of their "concrete" predictions of the economy, and now they pin this on Obama, after only 45 days in office? Seems a tad premature and ridiculous.

[DroppinScience]

Ahh, there's the old stand-by "Attack the messenger" retort we're soo familiar with.


I'm pretty sure you yourself engage in the ol' stand-by "attack the messenger" retort at least as much as you say all the rest of us do this.

Anyways, as for my financial wisdom, I prefer to go with Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman. He knows what he's talking about. He even has some fancy BAs and PhDs too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

[RobMoney$]

With that being said, DS didn't say that he gets his financial insight from Daily Show anywhere in his posts. He was showing the correlation between people who made shitty predictions in the past now saying that the Dow falling is Obama's fault; if they were wrong in the past (on major things), there's a good chance they're wrong now, too. I think it's a valid point too. A lot of people have lost credibility with all of their "concrete" predictions of the economy, and now they pin this on Obama, after only 45 days in office? Seems a tad premature and ridiculous.


Ok, I didn't make that connection at all. I see where he's coming from with that now.

But I never said anything like that, in fact I said sort of the opposite. My opinion was that "Obama isn't to blame for all of this, but he isn't helping".
I even said anyone who thinks he's responsible is ridiculous.

Maybe it's just Brett's motherly instinct that kicked in whenever he feels like his golden child is being attacked in the slightest bit?

[RobMoney$]

I'm pretty sure you yourself engage in the ol' stand-by "attack the messenger" retort at least as much as you say all the rest of us do this.

Well I think we can agree that it's pointless and it's just a debating technique to change the topic when you don't have a better response, right?

Anyways, as for my financial wisdom, I prefer to go with Nobel-prize winner Paul Krugman. He knows what he's talking about. He even has some fancy BAs and PhDs too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Maybe you should link some articles you find interesting of his more often and stop it with this Daily Show nonsense.

Edit:
Here's an interesting quote from your guy Paul Krugman's Wiki.


When Bill Clinton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton) came into office in 1993, he considered Krugman for a leading post; Krugman was flown out for a meeting in Arkansas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas). Krugman's outspokenness was reported to be "the main reason the Clinton administration didn't offer him a job." Krugman says he would not have been interested in such a job; he told Newsweek, "I'm temperamentally unsuited for that kind of role. You have to be very good at people skills, biting your tongue when people say silly things." In his New York Times blog, Krugman repeated that statement, saying that he was "temperamentally unsuited to politics".


Hahahaa, he's an asshole and he pretty much admits it.
I think I like this guy.

[yeahwho]

The Daily Show has a very vocal demographic, seems to me that this is significant enough that it does warrant considerable weight in the political spectrum of news. The major networks fiddled while Rome was burning and Jon Stewart's linked Daily Show piece is an excellent example of how these blowhards, that many people still grasp onto today, are even more clueless than us, the people who post here. The advice they schill out is worthless at best and downright dangerous at worst.

The obliviousness of the major networks financial correspondents to recognize a major crisis knocking on the front door is disturbing enough, the fact they all still work there is an even more disturbing state of our media's complete disregard for it's audience.

At least Stewart has the balls to point this out.

[DroppinScience]

But I never said anything like that, in fact I said sort of the opposite. My opinion was that "Obama isn't to blame for all of this, but he isn't helping".
I even said anyone who thinks he's responsible is ridiculous.


Even though the CNBC rant was still relevant, it was the next segment of that same March 4/09 episode that I wanted to link where he discusses the Dow Jones Index falling and Obama taking office(long story short, ComedyCentral.com doesn't allow viewers outside the U.S. to access their video clips. I can only access TDS via TheComedyNetwork.ca, which incidentally doesn't allow viewers outside of Canada to view their videos either :rolleyes: ). It even points out past presidents and the Dow Jones, too.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220253&title=the-dow-knows-all

I can't see this clip, but I know it syncs up with my Canadian equivalent.

[yeahwho]

The thing that really cracks me up is that a host to a show that discusses finance would actually say in late 2008 it is a great time to invest in stocks. They should be criticizing the lack of wealth distribution and insider trading. Triple debt has been accumulating like a giant dung ball for the past 8 years, check cashing franchises (charging legally over 35% finance charges to the poorest of the poor) have increased business by 2000%, dominating America's strip mall landscape.

Yet these hacks on these investment shows mentally masturbated millions in their audience. I would like to see a compilation of them apologizing for their irresponsible take on the obviousness of triple debt, which they never did acknowledge. Triple debt will not work. Being in debt once during your life with a mortgage is a huge enough problem. To add credit, auto and who knows what else is crazy. That is exactly what the media financial correspondents encouraged.

[Burnout18]

I find CNBC as inept at forecasting my finances as Jon Stewart. I've never taken the advise of any television business analyst serious. I have never even considered to use any of their advise as part of a decision balance with my $$$.

I would use Jon Stewarts' skewered view of the world as a barometer for investment before I would take advice from any of these television hawkers. They really suck, I'm so happy I never paid them any mind.

ok sorry if i wasn't clear, i was reffering to when cramer worked as a broker and managed his own hedge fund in the 80's and 90's. Not as the guy who is quite the charector on TV.

[Burnout18]

I don't know many people who use just the Daily Show for their news, though I'm sure they're out there. But with that being said, why can't the Daily Show be cited? They don't just make up the news (outside of obvious and funny references/photoshop jobs); they report on other shows, other news clips, most of the time bringing up points that the mainstream media won't touch. They report on the legitimate news and then use sarcasm and wit to make fun of it. He's the only one I saw that seriously showed in depth everything that Bush said he would never fathom doing as a "compassionate conservative" candidate of 2000 and comparing it to what President Bush of 2001-2009 actually DID. Why can't that be brought up in a serious context?


The problem I have with the daily show being brought up in serious context is thier first objective isn't to inform anyone, it is to make them laugh. They are successful and great as a comedy show, but lets be honest they do take video clips out of context sometimes and other times they use video as just set up for a stewart joke.

Staying on subject, with the CNBC stuff.... like it was fun to point out like how wrong they looked. But on October 6th, 2008 when the dow was at 9955.50 points, Jim Cramer got on the today show and kinda went,,, yea its time to sell stock if you need your money and predicted a 20% drop in the Dow.... well as of now it dropped about 33% (quick math), so yea i guess he underestimated the drop but still... but the daily show wouldn't put that in thier piece, cause they are just trying to make him look stupid as can be, so he can be part of a million dollar punchline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoSLVCEGKko&feature=related

[DroppinScience]

The problem I have with the daily show being brought up in serious context is thier first objective isn't to inform anyone, it is to make them laugh. They are successful and great as a comedy show, but lets be honest they do take video clips out of context sometimes and other times they use video as just set up for a stewart joke.

Staying on subject, with the CNBC stuff.... like it was fun to point out like how wrong they looked. But on October 6th, 2008 when the dow was at 9955.50 points, Jim Cramer got on the today show and kinda went,,, yea its time to sell stock if you need your money and predicted a 20% drop in the Dow.... well as of now it dropped about 33% (quick math), so yea i guess he underestimated the drop but still... but the daily show wouldn't put that in thier piece, cause they are just trying to make him look stupid as can be, so he can be part of a million dollar punchline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoSLVCEGKko&feature=related

I think people seriously underestimate "The Daily Show" as a source of information. In a world gone mad, it's highly telling that a comedy show gets it dead right where the so-called "serious" shows that are supposedly out there to inform fail miserably at their duty.

Let's face facts, this CNBC clip got people talking and finally said what so many were thinking that mainstream media NEVER wants to discuss.

If you don't want TDS cited so much, I could always pull up a Bill Moyers video (each week on PBS, it seems, he discusses the economy in an intelligent, thoughtful way), but the effect would be completely different.

[yeahwho]

If you don't want TDS cited so much, I could always pull up a Bill Moyers video (each week on PBS, it seems, he discusses the economy in an intelligent, thoughtful way), but the effect would be completely different.

Bill is an analyst, a journalist and intelligent. He isn't actually trying to inform you what to buy and what to invest in (sandwiched between corporate sponsor's advertising). He is counting on relaying factual information to average people and hoping they have the capabilities to make rational decisions on his journalistic approach to the economy.

This is why CNBC is skewered and laughable to me, they actually believe their own bullshit about the economy, or worse, perpetuate incredibly bad information to average people.

Look at the mainstay show titles on this channel,

* Squawk Box
* Squawk on the Street
* The Call
* Power Lunch
* Street Signs
* Closing Bell
* Fast Money
* Mad Money
* The Kudlow Report
* On the Money

With so much information on the internet and so many free stock tracking sites, it's silly to listen to gibberish between broker ads. These shows make USA Today look like rocket science.

[AceFace]

just drove down main street here in the town i grew up in, Salem, VA and about 5 businesses closed over the weekend. scary.

[Burnout18]

If you don't want TDS cited so much, I could always pull up a Bill Moyers video (each week on PBS, it seems, he discusses the economy in an intelligent, thoughtful way), but the effect would be completely different.

Yes, i think that would be more effective.... No offense to Stewart and his writers but thier agenda is to get thier audience to laugh, where as citing moyers would be more appropriate.

[yeahwho]

just drove down main street here in the town i grew up in, Salem, VA and about 5 businesses closed over the weekend. scary.

they've shuttered up quite a few places around my neighborhood too, as an added burden, crime is up, burglaries of homes and cars in this area have risen by 200% over last years rate.

very scary

[DroppinScience]

Yes, i think that would be more effective.... No offense to Stewart and his writers but thier agenda is to get thier audience to laugh, where as citing moyers would be more appropriate.

Well, Jon Stewart gives a "Fuck you" to predatory loaners. Bill Moyers articulately gives you an exhaustive background on why you should yell "fuck you" to said predatory lenders. Both are immensely valuable. (y)