One reaction to the Stewart-Cramer Interview from financial pundit James Pethokoukis, an official CNBC contributor who appears frequently on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company, Power Lunch, and The Call is particularly revealing.
There was a lively exchange last night on The Daily Show between Jon Stewart and CNBC's Jim Cramer, in which Stewart hammered Cramer and the network for being subservient to Wall Street and not alerting viewers to the coming meltdown. Cramer and the network can defend themselves, but what became clear to me is that Stewart really doesn't believe in the idea of a stock market where individuals can go to invest their money and build wealth over the long term. This, I think, is a revealing quote:
Isn't that part of the problem, selling this idea that you don't have to do anything? Anytime you sell people the idea that, sit back and you'll get 10 to 20 percent on your money, don't you always know that that's going to be a lie. When are we going to realize in this country that are wealth is work, that we're workers [That should be “our wealth”; typo from Pethokoukis’ transcription.]
Me: So what is Stewart suggesting, that we "workers" just save insane gobs of money that we squirrel away into low-yielding savings accounts and rely on those savings and Social Security for our retirement? The only reason to do that is if you don't believe in the long-run soundness of the American economy. And if the American economy isn't dynamic over the long run, don't expect Social Security or Medicare to meet their meager promises.
Americans need to be building asset wealth, they need to think of themselves as "investors" and not just workers. Even plenty of Democrats believe that, which is why many are pushing universal savings accounts. Now, of course, investors tend to be more conservative than folks without investment portfolios. So maybe that is what really bugs the liberal Stewart, as well as those Dems who want to get rid of 401(k) plans.
As I wrote recently:
In short, save the stock market, save the world. Indeed, while Americans should reduce their debt and save more, a good chunk of that savings needs to go into wealth-building assets. And by that I mean stocks and bonds. Obama needs to rekindle America's love affair with investing. Indeed, this could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to let people invest some of their payroll taxes into the stock market. Buy low, sell high. Indeed, even many of left-of-center analysts contend that unless Rising Asia becomes Disappearing Asia, excess global labor supply will continue to push down hard on wages. Families have to earn income from assets as well as a job. Free-marketeers prefer Social Security privatization, while liberal might be more comfortable with government financed "baby bonds" for kiddies.
Pethokoukis provides an example of the prevailing ideology which overwhelms the news coverage of the unfolding financial apocalypse.
Like CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, who recently said, “Obama is declaring war on investors, entrepreneurs, small businesses, large corporations, and private-equity and venture-capital funds,” the dominating worldview is that you cannot go after the rich because the rich keep America the poor propped up and functioning. They employ the poor so the poor should not be angry at the rich's greed or corruption.
When you hear Jon Stewart talk about this “other market that’s occurring in the back room where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it’s transactional and it’s fast and it’s ethically dubious and it hurts that long-term market” which many Americans have their 401Ks in, how can you not ask the question, “Why should I invest in a market that I know has this market operating which will inevitably gamble away and negatively impact my investment in the long term?”
More Blame for the Mortgage Owner
Erin Burnett, anchor on CNBC’s “Street Signs” and co-anchor on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on March 6th nearly a week before Stewart confronted Jim Cramer. Here is what was said while Burnett was participating in Maher’s panel.
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