Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Quote of the Day

"You know, I get called a denier. And anyone who objects to all of the hype gets called a denier. That’s supposed to make me a Holocaust denier. I’m getting tired of that. The comment I made was, the demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler. Carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so were the Jews."

William Happer, Princeton Physics Professor

Happer faiuls to understand that no carbon dioxide have been executed by Hitler.

Media Matters notes that Happer has published no peer reviewed papers on climate change.

This is the controversial Happer gave The Daily Princetonian.

“This is George Orwell. This is the ‘Germans are the master race. The Jews are the scum of the earth.’ It’s that kind of propaganda,” Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, said in an interview. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Every time you exhale, you exhale air that has 4 percent carbon dioxide. To say that that’s a pollutant just boggles my mind. What used to be science has turned into a cult.”

Perhaps The Daily Princetonian didn't give Happer's entire quote. Barring that it is impossible what point is Happer is trying to make. Happer rambles on about George Orwell, Nazi Germany and cults. Happer is using a lot of buzz words but fails to prove how climate scientists are making a Jim Jones cult in Nazi Germany.

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

Alex Pareene's First and Last Appearance on CNBC

It is hard to believe that CNBC let Alex Pareene of Salon.com to come on. The result was Pareene hammered Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan.

Maria Bartiromo: Alex, to you first. Legal problems aside, JP Morgan remains one of the best, if not the best performing major bank in the world today. You believe the leader of that bank should step down?

Alex Pareene: I think that any time you’re looking at the greatest fine in the history of Wall Street regulation, it’s really worth asking should this guy stay in his job. In any other industry — I can’t think of another industry. If you managed a restaurant, and it got the biggest health department fine in the history of restaurants, no one would say “Yeah, but the restaurant’s making a lot of money. There’s only a little bit of poison in the food.”

Maria Bartiromo and Duff McDonald come to Dimon's rescue. McDonald goes as far as to say Dimon has a "great track record." Former IMF economist Simon Johnson would disagree. Johnson has called Dimon "the most dangerous man in America."

1. Big companies need big banks, operating across borders, with large balance sheets and the ability to execute a wide variety of transactions. This is simply not true – if we are discussing banking at the current and future proposed scale of JP Morgan Chase. We go through this in detail in 13 Bankers – in fact, refuting this point in detail, with all the evidence on the table, was a major motivation for writing the book. There is simply no evidence – and I mean absolutely none – that society gains from banks having a balance sheet larger than $100 billion. (JP Morgan Chase is roughly a $2 trillion bank, on its way to $3 trillion.)

2. The US banking system is not particularly concentrated relative to other OECD countries. This is true – although the degree of concentration in the US has increased dramatically over the past 15 years (again, details in 13 Bankers) and in key products, such as credit cards and mortgages, it is now high. But in any case, the comparison with other countries doesn’t help Mr. Dimon at all – because most other countries are struggling with the consequences of banks that became too large relative to their economies (e.g., in Europe; see Ireland as just one illustrative example).

3. Canada did fine during 2008-09 despite having a relatively concentrated financial system. Mr. Dimon would obviously like to move in the Canadian direction – and top people in the White House are also very much tempted. This is frightening. Not only does it represent a complete misunderstanding of the government guarantees behind banking in Canada (which we have clarified here recently), but this proposal – at its heart – would allow, in the US context, even more complete state capture than what we have observed under the stewardship of Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner. Place this question in the context of American history (as we do in Chapter 1 of 13 Bankers): If the US had just five banks left standing, would their political power and ideological sway be greater or less than it is today?

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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Elizabeth Warren Destroys CNBC

CNBC loves backing Wall Street and the big banks. People are becoming aware of this and CNBC's ratings are tanking.

The Squawk Box attempted to tear Elizabeth Warren for proposing to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act. That would mean the commercial and investment banks would be separated. Obviously, the Street does not like this and CNBC was going to defend the status quo. The Squawk Box was at a loss when Warren pointed out there was no major financial the crash when the Glass-Steagall Act was in place. Charles P. Pierce of Esquire summed it up best.

My god, this is a kicking of the ass. Sooner or later, they're going to realize that you really do have to bring the A-game on this stuff to the Senior Senator, or she is going to smile her Okie smile and the hook is going to come off the jab and, as the great Jimmy Breslin once put it, you will leave the ring in a blanket. She does mean business. Someone should start to believe that.

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Tuesday, July 09, 2013

CNBC Sucks So Bad Ratings Are Falling

It is good to see that the daily disaster known as CNBC is experiencing its worst rating since 2005.

CNBC‘s total number of quarterly viewers fell to their lowest level since the second quarter of 2005, and in the all-important age group of 25-54, CNBC witnessed its lowest level quarter since 1994, reports Vikas Shukla of ValueWalk.com

Apparently, people are tuning away from the bogus supply side economics of Larry Kudlow.

Larry Kudlow still talks about the importance of gold. Gold would be important if we still lived in the 19th century economy. Kudlow takes to Twitter to spout inaccurate science.

Crooks and Liars posted this chart to point out how disconnected Kudlow was from the scientific reality of global warming.

Kudlow and his panel accused Occupy Wall Street of being dangerous people prone to violence. One of those people is publicly disgraced journalist Armstrong Williams. If you recall, Williams was paid $240,000 by the Bush administration to say nice things about No Child Left Behind.

The Government Accountability Office ruled that the Williams' contract was illegal "covert propaganda." Williams repaid $34,000 in a settlement with the Justice Department.

Jim Cramer's show is also dropping in the ratings. Perhaps it is because he plays with toys on-the-air and is prone to panic attacks.

CNBC could go off the air tomorrow and the only people that would care is Wall Street firms that get free propaganda.

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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Glenn Hubbard's Viral Moment

This would be a fitting end to economist Glenn Hubbard's political career.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

John Carney Wants Treasury to Tax Itself

The stupidity of CNBC columnist John Carney is beyond words. Carney believes that 234 million shares of AIG stock to avoid paying a higher capital gains tax next tax year.

One question that comes to mind is whether the timing of this sale of the last of the Treasury's stake in AIG allowed the Treasury to avoid rising capital gains taxes in 2013. In 2013, when the law that temporarily lowered capital gains rates expires, the rates on long term capital gains are set to rise from 15 percent 20 percent. Lots of investors are attempting lock-in gains now to avoid paying the higher rate. Did the Treasury just do the same thing?

Carney then goes on to cry about the Treasury Department being tax exempt. The harsh injustice of it all. What Carney fails to realize that on the AIG share sale the point is moot. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department. Carney cries about Treasury not paying capital gains taxes on the AIG sale. If Treasury did pay taxes on the AIG sale it would just collect the money back through the IRS.

The stupidity of the people that work at CNBC amazes me.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Quote of the Day



"George (W.) Bush created a lot of jobs."

RNC Chairman Michael Steele, on CNBC

The Wall Street Journal has kinder job creation numbers than Young Turks host Cenk Uygur. The WSJ still labels Bush's job numbers "The Worst Track Record On Record."

Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer



Jim Cramer claims Jon Stewart was wrong for attacking him for backing Bear Sterns stocks. Stewarts shows footage of Cramer urging CNBC viewers to buy Bear Sterns stocks. Why does anyone listen to Cramer of CNBC?

Related: Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer Part 2

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