Wednesday, March 11, 2009

More Thoughts on CNBC

After listening to and reading about the goings-back-and-forth between John Stewart and Jim Cramer, I have some additional thoughts particularly about the role of a company like CNBC in the financial arena. I have some real problems with the notion that CNBC, fully owned and operated by General Electric, has no particular agenda in marketplace issues. The idea that, somehow, these folks who must do the bidding of their Masters are, somehow, filling the role of a legitimate "fourth estate" role as part of the press strikes me as absurd. And while a great young writer like Cenk Uygur says here that his critique of CNBC doesn't reflect any "axe" he has to grind with them because he didn't lose any money in the market, I think he needs to step back and go the next step.

The fact is that, unless you live on Mars, or are part of an indigenous culture somewhere on earth that is still unaffected by the spread of the "global economy", none of us are immune to the faltering steps of these giants that walk the earth. The megaforces at work in multinational corporations have propagated this idea of the "global economy" which has some influence on all of us. This price of oil, as an example, responds daily, it seems, to market vicissitudes. Of course, there is widespread speculation, deservedly so, that oil markets, like the market manipulations that Jim Cramer admits to here, are frequently driven by other forces beyond supply and demand.

Four dollar gas - or two dollar gas, for that matter - affects every one of us. The manipulated fluctuations of the market creates countless ripples that none of us can ignore.

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