RIP CNBC
March 13th, 2009
There’s plenty of blogosphere chatter about Jon Stewart’s evisceration of Jim Cramer last night (TalkingPointsMemo has helpfully posted the full, unexpurgated interview). Felix Salmon sums up most of my view, by just declaring: “Don’t watch CNBC.” I particularly liked Stewart’s controlled anger.
The one key point that I thought he missed was the idiocy of the frantic trading mentality that is at the root of CNBC. There is ample evidence that trading is for suckers — the only winner is the brokerage that collects the commission. I don’t have a problem with Cramer getting some of his stock picks wrong. It’s the very notion of encouraging stock picking that’s wrong. Still, Stewart did the world a service by sticking a very large spear into the bleeding pig that is CNBC.