The Friedman-Donahue exchange came at just that moment with a resurgent Right pushing Ronald Reagan as its champion, with his message of "government is the problem."
The rest, as they say, is history. Reagan's anti-government mantra became the dominant message of the era amplified by a growing right-wing media that propagandized the public. Over the next three decades, propelled by Reagan's strategy of massive tax cuts for the rich and hostility to unions, the rich got richer, while the poor and middle class stagnated, struggled and sank.
Under this pro-market "group think," to even suggest that the government could contribute something positive would engender smirks and derision. [For more, see Consortiumnews.com's "Reagan's 30-Year Time Bombs."]
This pattern continued, largely unbroken, until the Wall Street meltdown in 2008. Suddenly, the geniuses who had promoted the theory of "self-regulating markets" were stuck with massive losses in exotic subprime investments. A toxic blend of greed and gullibility threatened to take down the world economy.
Yet, without so much as a blush, Wall Street turned to the hated "gov-mint" and demanded bailouts for the banks and other key parts of the financial system. Between loans and giveaways from Washington and the Federal Reserve, trillions of dollars in public monies refloated a veritable regatta of Wall Street's yachts; the modest boats of the average folks, not so much.
At CNBC, the "free-market-is-God" anchors -- the likes of Larry Kudlow and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera -- behaved as if nothing had happened to rattle their world. Their devotion to the Market didn't miss a beat. It was as if the meltdown had never occurred.
Most of the TV talking heads on CNBC seemed to live in a parallel reality where the teachings of Milton Friedman remained indisputable.
Aid to Average Folks
When CNBC personalities did get riled up about "gov-mint bailouts," it was usually when there was some suggestion that Washington might help the average folks who lost their jobs due to the crash and whose homes had fallen into foreclosure.
In February 2009, less than a month after Barack Obama had taken office, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli -- speaking from the trading floor of the Chicago commodities exchange -- fumed about Obama's plan to help up to nine million Americans avoid foreclosure.
Santelli suggested that Obama get public feedback on whether "we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages." Then, gesturing to the wealthy traders in the pit, Santelli declared, "this is America" and asked "how many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills, raise their hand."
Amid a cacophony of boos aimed at Obama's housing plan, Santelli turned back to the camera and said, "President Obama, are you listening?"
Though Santelli's behavior in a different context -- say, a denunciation of George W. Bush near the start of his presidency -- would surely have resulted in a suspension or firing, Santelli's anti-Obama rant was hailed as "the Chicago tea party," made Santelli an instant hero across right-wing talk radio, and was featured proudly on NBC's Nightly News.
More than two years later, little has changed at CNBC.
Now that the bailouts of Wall Street have returned the banks to profitability -- and opened the penthouse doors to more multi-million-dollar bonuses for top executives -- CNBC sees no contradiction between its fawning devotion to the "free market" and the market's abject failure to succeed on its own.
In a further testament to the power of
cognitive dissonance, CNBC is now presenting to its viewers a
three-decade-old video of the Right's financial guru besting a liberal
talk show host as proof that the infallibility of the "free market"
still cannot be denied.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
