The Democrats are unable to pass a bill to provide health care for 911 first responders because they want to pay for it by closing a tax loophole.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill | ||||
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Showing posts with label Jon Stewart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jon Stewart. Show all posts
Thursday, August 5, 2010
No Matter How Cynical You Get . . . .
. . . it's almost impossible to keep up.
The Democrats are unable to pass a bill to provide health care for 911 first responders because they want to pay for it by closing a tax loophole.
The Democrats are unable to pass a bill to provide health care for 911 first responders because they want to pay for it by closing a tax loophole.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Jon Stewart Rips Laura Ingraham for Holocaust References
A few years back, the Right Wingnuts went crazy when Illinois Senator Dick Durbin dared to suggest that the photos coming out of Abu Ghraib prison reminded him of something he would expect to find in a totalitarian regime. Now, however, these same jackasses have no qualms about using Holocaust analogies to oppose health care reform that would still leave Americans far short of what citizens enjoy in almost every other industrialized democracy in the world.
Perhaps Stewart's best line was his response to the moron who insisted that "we can never let the pen become mightier than the sword."
"The pen being mightier than the sword is only the basis for our civilization."
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Highway to Health - Last Tea Party Protest of the Year | ||||
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Perhaps Stewart's best line was his response to the moron who insisted that "we can never let the pen become mightier than the sword."
"The pen being mightier than the sword is only the basis for our civilization."
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Morning Joe and Starbucks a la Jon Stewart
Memo to Joe Scarborough:
When The Daily Show does a piece that humorously exposes your foibles, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!
Last week, Jon Stewart poked fun at the new deal under which Starbucks is sponsoring MSNBC's Morning Joe program. I didn't think the piece was terribly scathing, but Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski decided to react with huffy indignation and attack Stewart's sense of humor. How'd that work out for ya Joe?
When The Daily Show does a piece that humorously exposes your foibles, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!
Last week, Jon Stewart poked fun at the new deal under which Starbucks is sponsoring MSNBC's Morning Joe program. I didn't think the piece was terribly scathing, but Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski decided to react with huffy indignation and attack Stewart's sense of humor. How'd that work out for ya Joe?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Morning Joe's Sarcastic Starbucks Sponsorship | ||||
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Monday, March 16, 2009
How Wall Street Works
"I thought Bear Stearns was honest." Jim Cramer.
I don’t believe this.
I think that Jim Cramer believed that the guys who ran Bear Stearns would pull the same kind of deceptive shenanigans in order to line their own pockets that Cramer pulled when he ran his own hedge fund. Cramer might have thought that there was some limit to what those guys would pull and that wherever that limit lay, there would still be a piece of the pie left over for the shareholders. That is not at all the same thing as thinking they were honest.
This is where I think Jon Stewart nailed it. I don’t think Jim Cramer knew that Bear Stearns was going to collapse. I do think he knew the kind of things that people on Wall Street do to make money and I think he understood the ways in which the interests of the guys running the firms diverge from the interests of the shareholders. The problem is not that the executives at Bear Stearns were not exposed to declines in the stock. The problem is that the benefits of short-term high-risk strategies were enjoyed to a much greater extent by the executives than by the shareholders while the risks were shared equally. This is what I think Cramer understood without ever trying to make his audience understand.
The bonuses at AIG illustrate the problem perfectly. The compensation of the executives who wrote the credit default swaps was structured in such a way that they are entitled to millions of dollars in bonuses even though there actions brought down the company and cost the taxpayers of the United States billions upon billions of dollars. The scale may be enough to shock Cramer, but the basic methodology shouldn't be.
I don’t believe this.
I think that Jim Cramer believed that the guys who ran Bear Stearns would pull the same kind of deceptive shenanigans in order to line their own pockets that Cramer pulled when he ran his own hedge fund. Cramer might have thought that there was some limit to what those guys would pull and that wherever that limit lay, there would still be a piece of the pie left over for the shareholders. That is not at all the same thing as thinking they were honest.
This is where I think Jon Stewart nailed it. I don’t think Jim Cramer knew that Bear Stearns was going to collapse. I do think he knew the kind of things that people on Wall Street do to make money and I think he understood the ways in which the interests of the guys running the firms diverge from the interests of the shareholders. The problem is not that the executives at Bear Stearns were not exposed to declines in the stock. The problem is that the benefits of short-term high-risk strategies were enjoyed to a much greater extent by the executives than by the shareholders while the risks were shared equally. This is what I think Cramer understood without ever trying to make his audience understand.
The bonuses at AIG illustrate the problem perfectly. The compensation of the executives who wrote the credit default swaps was structured in such a way that they are entitled to millions of dollars in bonuses even though there actions brought down the company and cost the taxpayers of the United States billions upon billions of dollars. The scale may be enough to shock Cramer, but the basic methodology shouldn't be.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Stewart Nails It
For a guy who is not in the business, this is an incredibly shrewd analysis.
I got to tell you, you know, I understand you want to make finance entertaining. But it’s not a fucking game. And—when I watch that [video of Cramer describing hedge fund tricks], I get—I can’t tell you how angry that makes me. Because what it says to me is: You all know. You all know what is going on. You know, you can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivatives market stuff… These guys at these companies were on a Sherman’s march through their companies, financed by our 401k’s. And all of the incentives of their companies were for short-term profit. And they burned the fucking house down with our money. And they walked away rich as hell, and you guys knew that that was going on.
Olberman and Maddow: Corporate Sell-Outs?
I found it very disappointing that Keith Olberman did not mention Jon Stewart's interview of Jim Cramer and that Rachel Maddow only mentioned that it had gotten a lot of press without showing any clips from it or explaining what had happened. It is very difficult to escape the conclusion that someone up the corporate ladder decided that no one on any of the NBC networks should mention the story.
On the Daily Kos, Olberman denied any such censorship and claimed that he simply did not consider it to be an important story. He pointed out that he had featured CNBC's Rick Santelli as a "Worst Person in the World," but that seems pretty thin. Santelli is a very minor CNBC contributor while Jim Cramer is one of its best known personalities with an hour-show of his own everyday. Santelli's rant did not reflect upon the the network's coverage as a whole.
For all the right wing ranting about the liberal media, the content is still controlled corporations like NBC parent GE who can nix any story that strikes too close to home
On the Daily Kos, Olberman denied any such censorship and claimed that he simply did not consider it to be an important story. He pointed out that he had featured CNBC's Rick Santelli as a "Worst Person in the World," but that seems pretty thin. Santelli is a very minor CNBC contributor while Jim Cramer is one of its best known personalities with an hour-show of his own everyday. Santelli's rant did not reflect upon the the network's coverage as a whole.
For all the right wing ranting about the liberal media, the content is still controlled corporations like NBC parent GE who can nix any story that strikes too close to home
Friday, March 13, 2009
Jim Cramer on the Daily Show
As a market-maker on the trading floor of Chicago Board Options Exchange, I knew lots of people like Jim Cramer. He has the trader's mentality that the stock market is a game to be played. As long as a trader plays by the rules (which Cramer may or may not have done when he was running a hedge fund), there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when the people who are playing trading games pretend that they are champions of capitalism who are investing in America and creating wealth. The problem with CNBC is that it shills for the Wall Street players and helps perpetuate the deception.
Jon Stewart did a brilliant job of exposing that deception last night in his interview with Cramer on The Daily Show. Stewart usually takes it easy on his guests regardless of their political leanings. Even someone as detestable as Josh Bolton or Doug Feith need not worry about much more than a pointed question or two. However, Stewart never let Cramer off the hook, forcing him to watch video clips of a three-year old web interview in which Cramer explained many of the tricks he played as a hedge fund manager. Stewart was not having fun and neither was Cramer.
So what turned Stewart into a pit bull last night? I don't think he held any particular animosity towards Cramer who seems to be a personable rogue. I think he did it because nobody else does. There are tons of people out there who are going after the Boltons and Feiths of the world, so Stewart doesn't mind going for laughs when they come on his show. However, nobody is going after the financial pundits and Stewart knew that someone should.
It was an impressive performance. Watch Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the unedited interview.
Jon Stewart did a brilliant job of exposing that deception last night in his interview with Cramer on The Daily Show. Stewart usually takes it easy on his guests regardless of their political leanings. Even someone as detestable as Josh Bolton or Doug Feith need not worry about much more than a pointed question or two. However, Stewart never let Cramer off the hook, forcing him to watch video clips of a three-year old web interview in which Cramer explained many of the tricks he played as a hedge fund manager. Stewart was not having fun and neither was Cramer.
So what turned Stewart into a pit bull last night? I don't think he held any particular animosity towards Cramer who seems to be a personable rogue. I think he did it because nobody else does. There are tons of people out there who are going after the Boltons and Feiths of the world, so Stewart doesn't mind going for laughs when they come on his show. However, nobody is going after the financial pundits and Stewart knew that someone should.
It was an impressive performance. Watch Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the unedited interview.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Erin Burnett: CNBC's Twit of the Day 3/10/09
Erin Burnett gets my vote for CNBC’s biggest twit today although her twittiness was on display on NBC’s Today Show rather than her usual gig on CNBC’s Street Signs. Burnett appeared with CNBC’s Jim Cramer who was struggling to defend himself against another beat down from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. In a column on MainStreet.com, Cramer had accused Stewart of taking his comments about Bear Stearns out of context. Cramer said that he had not been encouraging viewers to buy Bear Stearns stock one week before it collapsed as the clip played on The Daily Show implied; he had merely assured viewers with accounts at Bear Stearns that the money and securities in those accounts were safe. Stewart acknowledged the error, but the Daily Show’s researchers found that Cramer had recommended Bear Stearns stock at $69
Ever Cramer's loyal side kick, Burnett piped in with “Just to defend you Jim: Jim has to go out everyday and make these calls.”
Ever Cramer's loyal side kick, Burnett piped in with “Just to defend you Jim: Jim has to go out everyday and make these calls.”
Apparently, for Erin Burnett, the fact that Cramer gets paid to go out and shoot off his mouth about stocks everyday absolves him for any responsibility for pretending to know more than he really knows. I suppose that same logic would absolve all the mortgage brokers who sold subprime loans to unqualified home buyers. After all, they had to go out and recommend negative-amortization/interest-only/no-down-payment/teaser-rate loans to fools because that was what they were getting paid to do.
Burnett’s logic is actually quite consistent. Nobody should complain about China selling poisonous products because people are willing to pay for them. Nobody should complain about Cramer talking out of his ass because CNBC is willing to pay him to do it.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Daily Show Skewers CNBC
John McCain learned last September that it is not a good idea to bail out on David Letterman. Ranter Rick Santelli cancelled his appearance on the Daily Show last Wednesday and Jon Stewart ripped on the entire CNBC network.
Since I make my living trading stock options, I have CNBC on in my office all day long in order to catch breaking news, but listening to these blowhards can be painful. Larry Kudlow, Dennis Kneale, Rick Santelli, Melissa Francis and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera are libertarian ideologues who simply chant the free market mantra all day long while ignoring the role that lack of regulation played in the economic meltdown.
Stewart stayed with the stock market theme in the following segment by ripping on conservatives who attempt to judge Barack Obama's performance based on the latest level of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
(Stewart's discussion of the AIG bailout with business reporter Joe Nocera of the New York Times was also very interesting.)
Interestingly, I have yet to hear anyone on CNBC mention Wednesday's Daily Show although I don't watch all the shows that come on after the stock market closes. However, I have noticed that some of the more thoughtful analysts losing patience today with the blowhards. This morning, Steve Liesman took Melissa Francis to task (at the 2:30 mark in the video) for trying to suggest that the day's market decline had less to do with 8% unemployment rate announced this morning than a speech Obama gave to some new police officers in Columbus, Ohio.
This was followed by Phil Lebow calling Larry Kudlow "crazy" (at the 3:15 mark) for suggesting that a union-busting bankruptcy would provide a quick fix to General Motors' difficulties.
There are in fact a number of fair-minded analysts and reporters at CNBC. Unfortunately there are too many idiots who stick there fingers in their ears and try to drown out inconvenient facts by shouting laissez-faire shibboleths.
Since I make my living trading stock options, I have CNBC on in my office all day long in order to catch breaking news, but listening to these blowhards can be painful. Larry Kudlow, Dennis Kneale, Rick Santelli, Melissa Francis and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera are libertarian ideologues who simply chant the free market mantra all day long while ignoring the role that lack of regulation played in the economic meltdown.
Stewart stayed with the stock market theme in the following segment by ripping on conservatives who attempt to judge Barack Obama's performance based on the latest level of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
(Stewart's discussion of the AIG bailout with business reporter Joe Nocera of the New York Times was also very interesting.)
Interestingly, I have yet to hear anyone on CNBC mention Wednesday's Daily Show although I don't watch all the shows that come on after the stock market closes. However, I have noticed that some of the more thoughtful analysts losing patience today with the blowhards. This morning, Steve Liesman took Melissa Francis to task (at the 2:30 mark in the video) for trying to suggest that the day's market decline had less to do with 8% unemployment rate announced this morning than a speech Obama gave to some new police officers in Columbus, Ohio.
This was followed by Phil Lebow calling Larry Kudlow "crazy" (at the 3:15 mark) for suggesting that a union-busting bankruptcy would provide a quick fix to General Motors' difficulties.
There are in fact a number of fair-minded analysts and reporters at CNBC. Unfortunately there are too many idiots who stick there fingers in their ears and try to drown out inconvenient facts by shouting laissez-faire shibboleths.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Republican Hypocrisy Regarding Sarah Palin
Jon Stewart doing what he does so well, skewering politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Among the highlights:
Karl Rove explaining how Virginia governor Tim Kaine would be a bad VP choice for Obama because he had only been governor for three years and he had only been mayor of a city of 200,000 people.
Bill O'Reilly pontificating on how teen pregnancy was a private matter when it comes to the Palin family and blaming the parents of "pinhead" Jamie Lynn Spears for her pregnancy.
Dick Morris and McCain policy advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer slamming Hillary Clinton for playing the gender card and crying over the sexist treatment of Palin. However Stewart correctly noted, "In Dick Morris' defense, he is a lying sack of shit."
Palin herself criticizing Hillary for complaining about the way women are treated.
Among the highlights:
Karl Rove explaining how Virginia governor Tim Kaine would be a bad VP choice for Obama because he had only been governor for three years and he had only been mayor of a city of 200,000 people.
Bill O'Reilly pontificating on how teen pregnancy was a private matter when it comes to the Palin family and blaming the parents of "pinhead" Jamie Lynn Spears for her pregnancy.
Dick Morris and McCain policy advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer slamming Hillary Clinton for playing the gender card and crying over the sexist treatment of Palin. However Stewart correctly noted, "In Dick Morris' defense, he is a lying sack of shit."
Palin herself criticizing Hillary for complaining about the way women are treated.
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