CNBC and the Stockholm Syndrome for Speculators and Greed

Jon Stewart rakes CNBC over the coals. Jim Cramer, in full costume with his sleeves rolled up, finally surrenders. Those who attacked the president with the fall of the Dow are tongue-tied in a week the Dow has risen. Banks suddenly realize they had two profitable months while the CNBC “free market” defenders are on the defensive as the abuses they failed to report for years are revealed, Jon Stewart is on the march, Jim Cramer is apologizing for his sins and Americans want Bernie Madoff put in a zoo.

Yes, Madoff, the ultimate example of the culture of market corruption that emerges from the temple of greed that so many at CNBC worship at, should be put in a cage, placed in a zoo. Moms and dads can tell their kids: Here are the monkeys, here are the snakes, here are the Madoffs who embody the greed of the Gilded Age that is now coming to an end. Perhaps in his gilded cage, taken from zoo to zoo around the nation, Madoff can watch CNBC, too. If some of these “free market” impersonators had their way, the Madoffs of the world would never be caught, which is indeed what happened during the Bush years of the SEC.

There is a common denominator, which is the decline of the profession of journalism, the rise of news as entertainment, and the Stockholm Syndrome of media, in which far too much of the press become prisoners of those they cover, creating insider clubs from which the vast majority of Americans are excluded. Let’s start with CNBC, the homepage for wealthy speculators, hedge funds, big-time pumpers and dumpers, undisclosed short-sellers who bet against America, and the homepage for small-time day traders, many of whom, inevitably, fail.

Let’s be clear about a few things. First, there are some good people at CNBC, though the chaff overwhelms the wheat and the result is bad for America and corrupting of capitalism. Second, while I argue we have the worst generation of wealthy people since 1929, there are many good wealthy people. Show me a wealthy American who gives venture capital for new energy; show me a rich person who dreams of building a truly great newspaper and invests in it; show me a millionaire who supports homeless veterans, and God bless them all.

Jon Stewart is now the most important financial journalist in America because he speaks a simple truth, and has the audience to advance that simple truth, which is this: CNBC is the voice of speculation, the homepage of market insiderism, the advocate or enabler of what most Americans would call corruption.

If you are an average American investing in a retirement account, or a worker unionized or not, CNBC has nothing for you.

One CNBC personality, who called for a Boston Tea Party of the rich, who looked across the floor of the Chicago exchange and said of traders and speculators, “This is America,” actually believes, to use his word, that many of you are “losers.”

Another CNBC personality (notice I don’t call them journalists, which some are, but many are not, at CNBC) called for the abolition of the SEC (during a period of major corruption) because she believes (I couldn’t make this up if I tried) that Americans don’t need government to protect them from corruption, they need self-reliance.

Another CNBC personality throws chairs on his show, telling speculators and day traders what to buy and sell today, while he hurls popcorn and throws chairs and shouts in a voice louder than the Rolling Stones what the hot trade is for the day.

Let’s not over-demonize Cramer. He may bear a strange physical resemblance to Satan, but he is part of the larger problem at the network owned by GE (whose stock goes down as a result of the CNBC party line, a strange role-reversal of conflict of interest).

What does it tell us about CNBC’s vision of American capitalism that its major post-market shows are called “Fast Money” and “Mad Money”?

What does it tell us that host after host, guest after guest, declares virtual war against the president of the United States on behalf of, you guessed it, the intellectually idle faction of the rich who don’t want their taxes raised and mask their greed in clichés of economic philosophy that few of them understand?

In this Stockholm Syndrome of speculation that is called CNBC, we are either at the promised land (buy, buy, buy) or on the brink of hell (sell, sell, sell). Most Americans are merely bystanders in this charade, with their money being treated as little more than a vehicle for the hot trade today, and if the trades fail, to finance the big bailout tomorrow.

When all else fails, those who pillage and profit, and then pillage and lose, call the victims losers, which bears a growing resemblance to the rapist blaming the woman for the rape.

What does it tell us that a high percentage of guests on CNBC, and unnamed sources quoted on CNBC, are shorting the market, but CNBC refuses to tell us they are? If a trader would lose a lot of money if America succeeds, and make a lot of money if America fails, don’t we the people have a right to know this when they seek to spread fear and panic?

The issue is not whether they are right or wrong, the issue is whether we the people have a right to know their true financial interests. And we have a right to ask why CNBC systematically fails to tell us their true interests

The Stockholm Syndrome runs rampant on CNBC. It is impossible to tell who is the captor and who is the prisoner, because they become one and the same. In the same way the political pundits journey from show to show with the same platitudes, bromides and bad predictions because, my friends, as John McCain would say, journalism itself is on the wane, insiderism is on the rise, and many who used to be journalists have become quasi-insiders.

In this Stockholm Syndrome of what used to be journalism, the insiders are in the club, and the rest of us are outside the club. In this Stockholm Syndrome at CNBC, the profits should be privatized for the wealthy, the losses should be socialized and paid for by the rest of us, and when the rest of us seek equity against this socialism for the wealthy, they call us, not themselves, losers.

What does it tell us about CNBC that month after month, year after year, the charlatans promoting the housing bubble, while some of them made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of personal profit from it, paraded before the cameras of CNBC and were treated like royal monarchs and honored prophets of the new age?

Did any of you see CNBC ask Mr. Stanford, about to meet his own rendezvous with justice: “How does it feel to be a billionaire?” Is this news, commentary, analysis or opinion? Of course Mr. Stanford replied: “It feels great to be a billionaire!” Golly gee!

For those of you who are actually law-abiding, hardworking, average Americans, who is your friend during this great crisis and scandal of finance? CNBC? The cable political pundits? The daily newspapers?

Jon Stewart nailed it. How odd, that a man of comedy speaks financial truth, and the man in costume surrenders, confronted with the tapes of the tricks he played when he was a hedge fund hypester?

Who is the loser?

Where are the journalists?

Which side are you on?