Can someone help me settle an argument re: CNBC

[freethought]

To any one who can help me with this problem with an OBJECTIVE opinion.
My father, who is about 10 years retired, is an acitve stock trader. He has CNBC on the TV all the time, AND I DO MEAN ALL THE TIME. He seems to get upset if he misses Kudlow and Kramer, 'Craplow and Crackhead', if you ask me.

Anyway, this information he gets from CNBC, I beleive, is not worth a damn. My sister, who is PHD economist doing research and analysis and a reputable business school pretty much says the same thing. CNBC pushes a s__tload of market manipulation where small investors get the shaft or are lead into investment decisions that are not in their interest.

There have been some serious arguments on this issue in this house. I am talking some major screaming matches.

Should CNBC be trusted or not? I say 'NO'. Can someone help shine some light on this issue?

Thanks,

Freethought

[R3dD0g]

1. Wish I could help.

But, I've got a parental block on that channel.

Not enough money to worry about it, anyway.

[H2O Man]

2. Some people like it.

Some people don't. It can happen in even a healthy, happy extended family. The unhealthy part could occure, however, if one adult tries to tell another adult either to, or not to, watch it based on their opinion. Adults are entitled to their own opinion.

[KoKo]

3. I'll try...because I go back over 15 years to when CNBC bought out FNN

which was a great little California Cable who did REAL stock market reporting.

I'll try to organize the time frame from memory, without doing a Google because I don't have time..but back in the days of "FNN" (Financial News Network) & "Court TV" in the early days of "Cable" there was this little Financial Network (FNN) out of California which was the first "Cable" TV Show which focused on the Stock Market. (Lou Rukeyser's show on PBS was the real first..but FNN hoped to take this a step further)

ANYWAY....FNN (which featured some of the anchors we still see like Bill Griffith and Sue Herrera) was bought out by an "interim" entity the name of which escapes me. Anyway it was a "merger" between little FNN and a New York financial network where they then picked up Neil Cavuto (now with Fox News)Ron Insana, Ted David and a few others who didn't last and whose names escape me.

Another couple of years later Microsoft bought them or heavily invested and the old FNN which merged into MSNBC then became CNBC and it was during the "BUBBLE." The whole network changed in 1996 and became a WHORE for the Stock Market bubble where they hired "MARIA" (the star who fed info to Larry Cramer of "The Street.com) and then to day where Kudlow/Cramer have their own "pump the market show" and the rest of the folks you see whoring on there these days.

Since Bush came in CNBC has deteriorated to the point where I no longer can stand to watch it. The Corporate Whoring makes me ill, and particularly when I know how they started and to see some of the anchors who were once "consumer oriented" turn into "shills" for the Corps..just sends me over the edge.

ABOUT YOUR FATHER. Since he retired 10years ago..he probably wants to keep in touch with his former career. It may be that he needs to listen to this, because he wants to feel he's "still involved" and making a difference even though he isn't employed in the financial centers any more.

Having a relative, myself who is so distraught after retiring that he will do anything to keep in touch with his former employers (he was an Engineer)and most of them are dead, now..I sympathize with you about your own father. He just wants to feel he's there in the "thick of things" and unfortunately the sad state of what CNBC has become is the only way he can do it and feel he's independent.

Kudlow is a former (?) Cocain addict who was the head of Bear Stearns Investment who had to be sent out to Rehab twice. He also has "powerful Repug Connections" going back to Reagan where he was one of the promoters (as a young guy) of "Supply Side" economics which was so bad that Reagan replaced Gerald Stockman (the chief Supply Sider) because it didn't work. Poppy Bush called Supply Side, "Voodoo Economics" and their whole philosophy was in ill repute until Bush II came into power and brought the "Supply Side" theory back. Kudlow has been riding on this and his great friendship with Jack Welch the former Chariman and huge stockholder and Bush Insider owner of CNBC/MSNBC/GE. So Welch and Kudlow are "kissies" with each other.

Cramer got into big trouble for "pushing stock tips" to Maria Barteromo of CNBC during the Bubble. Eric Alterman mentions this whole Cramer whoring and trouble in his book "What Liberal Media," btw.

Cramer is no better than Kudlow. Both should probably be serving some time in cushy Fed Prisons but Jack Welch (Former CEO of GE) and NBC are coddling them because they have huge power.

I wrote too long about this, and didn't give you enough links, to make this a real "research article." But, I gave you my long history of CNBC back to it's founding which as I said is nothing like the Whore Cable Network it is today, even though some of the originals are still there as anchors.

CNBC is an example of how terrible things are in our media today. But once they were a "shining star" of what the best of Cable Could have been. I took time to answer you, because I thought so highly of them years ago, and because I have a Dad who is retired and desperate for any way to connect to his former career...so I connected with your post.

Probably gave you too much info..and ranted, but don't be too hard on your DAD...CNBC is a Whore..but if he needs it to feel he's still alive and "with it" then maybe just go with it..to keep the peace. You probably won't convince him that they are just Corporate Whores for GE now...anyway. But, if it keeps him active in his mind..then sometimes its best just to let it go... :shrug:

PS: If your Dad is making stock picks on Kudlow & Cramer and it interferes with what he needs to live on for his retirement or his family expenses, then maybe the "family" needs to intervene, though.

Kudlow & Cramer are such whores I'd hate to see your Dad trading away his money so he has nothing left in the event he needs Nursing Home Care or what he wants to leave to his children after he passes on.

Bilking folks out of their money is what those two and CNBC are into, today, so if it gets "outta hand," then you might need to do what we had to do with our Dad and that's to stop him from "getting in over his head" with stuff he didn't quite understand anymore. My Dad grew up when you could trust "some people" at least. NOT TODAY...

[freethought]

6. You DID NOT write too much

On the contrary, you gave me synopsis that was more than I could have asked for. Thank You Very, very much. I will clear up a point or two.
My father is not a retired trader but a retired carpenter/construction supervisor. He has a good retirement, health care etc. The money he uses to play the market is his own. We have sat down with him and talked and he does seem to aknowledge that what he is doing is closer to gabmling than investing. The money is his to lose. Still I can't help but be concerned that something could go really wrong. I'll lighten up some. But I WILL NOT use CNBC for my own activity. I refuse to.

Thanks alot Koko01.

[Warpy]

4. Wall Street Week on PBS

...also has a dismal track record on stock market predictions. Either you think all these guys are part of some shadowy team manipulating markets to defraud small investors, or you realize that the stock market is a gigantic casino, the odds are not in our favor but reside among the 0.5% of the population that can be characterized as the super rich and are privy to information that never manages to filter down our way.

Look at it this way, in normal years (not the dotcom crazy 90s) a savvy investor can average maybe 2% per year. A hotshot trader averages around 6%. Congressmen realize an average of 12%, and are duly indebted to the people who help them do this(read this in one of the online business mags a couple of months ago).

None of the 0.5% of the population that form the casino "house" is going to talk to you or me, or to your dad, or to the talking heads he's watching on TV. They have no reason to.

The stock market is gambling, pure and simple, because no small investor has all the information he needs to make a solid purchase, or to avoid an unsolid one. Luck plays the biggest part. If you have money you can afford to lose, go ahead, take a flyer, some people do manage to win. If you're living on plastic furniture while pouring every dime into the market, you're probably not being real smart. Given the track records of brokers at companies like Merrill Lynch, and they way they were told to push "dog" stocks, one begins to see even more of the problem the smalltimer faces.

Oh, and before the flames start, that 7% gain stockbrokers like to claim is the average of the Dow as a whole. There are a lot of losers in that figure, and most of the losers are smalltimers.

[Nite Owl]

5. You are absolutely correct.

I am a trader and we use CNBC as a contrarian indicator. When they start calling a rally you can bet we are topping out. Sell signal! I am by no means an investor. That is a losing game, buy and hold is what Wall St. wants every good little investor to do but the market has ups and downs and taking profits is what it's all about. Better a small profit consistently than holding large loses and hoping that they will 'come back' one day.

[freethought]

8. I get your point

A few week ago CNBC was pumping this stock like crazy. A company called Taser. The stuff had skyrocketed the last year to nearly $64/share. All week it seemed it was Taser, Taser, and more Taser. Now its worth about $25/share. It was at this point my opinion became firm, CNBC is bullshit.

Thanks Nite Owl!

[Doctor Smith]

7. CNBC used to stand for

"Consumer News and Business Channel", and they used to have useful consumer oriented shows as well as business news.

Now all they do is pimp for Wall Street and Republicans.

[freethought]

9. You at least expect they'd kiss us first. n/t

[rapier]

10. notes

CNBC is a marketing arm of Wall Street. Then again, so is 95% of the popular 'bussiness' media. Shills and touts dominate the guest list and the talking heads are their willing partners.

That said, there is no way to win any arguements about this. It's best just to agree to disagree.

Belief in the stock and financial markets is so much a part of peoples entire belief system that there is no way to shake them from it. It is a vital part of our culture which has been drummed into us by 20+ years of incessant propoganda, of which CNBC is a part. Little wonder he get irate when that world is questioned.

In the 1920's the stock and financial markets were in many ways just as important, however back then fewer people were involved. By the mid 30's stocks and all things financial were held in total contempt by the vast majority. This cycle will inevitably repeat.

If it starts to happen sooner rather than later is the only question.

I wonder how he has done over the past 10, 5 and 2 years. Meaning how did he do during the boom, and the subsiquent bust and the subsequent rally. The S&P is still 25% off its peak and the NASDAQ is 60% down. The only non heated rational discussion you might be able to have with him concerns his money. If he really got hurt in 2000 to 2002 then the shape of the discussion might be different but the thing to discuss with him is at what point would he get out of stocks. EVERY trader must have that point in the back of his or her mind or they are not traders. Urge him to set a line in the sand where he will protect his capital.

[freethought]

11. I won't give specific numbers but

He did great during the last 'boom'. When that corrected itself his investment values were about 1/4 of their 'height of the boom' value.
He has started making up lost ground but I do not forsee him recouping his losses unless we get another 90's style bubble.

He won't lose everything, just his investment money, for living purposes he has his retirement which uses exclusivley for living and he is not a big spender.

His watching CNBC,IMHO, has made him a little 'jumpy' and I do fear he could become 'really jumpy'

A couple of posters have seemed to send the same message. What is needed is a rational discussion.

[rapier]

12. notes

You mean he lost 75% from his peak which was undoubtably the spring of 2000? If so then he is a textbook case because that means he got 'rich' on the NASDAQ bubble and despite the fact that the bubble burst price wise, unlike all previous bubbles in history, the bubble sentiement remains intact.

That is due I believe in the main due to the work of the CNBC's which never stopped touting the New Economy asset inflation is 'wealth' story. Well I guess ultimately the credit goes to Greenspan who kept the credit/liquidity bubbles alive and thus prevented the normal cyclical contraction.

That loss also means that he rode the bear market all the way to the bottom. That will be the fate of most stock 'investors'.I put the word investors in quotes because stocks are not an investment they are a speculation. always have been always will be.;

FOrgetting the big picture,which I believe is that the stock and financial markets are courrupt and near a disaster of historic proportion and suggest to him two things. First is that the 4 year presidetial cycle suggests that we are in the area of time where the markets normally peak and that history records that when the real economy is doing well the majority of the rise in stocks is already done.

If you want to fight a bit tell him hope is not an option in speculation, ie. investing. Whatever he thinks of the macro economic picture which probably reflects the CNBC/Wall St. consensus, that the bull will never end, what he believes will or should happen can have no place in his trading decisions. Only diciplined decision makeing stripped of all sentiment will allow one to make money speculating.

In fact CNBC and the like, as arms or Wall St. are in the bussiness of seperating people from their money but feeding bullish sentiment. Most readings of sentiment early this year measured the highest bullish sentiment over an exteded period in history. Imagine that. Stocks well below their peaks, disasterously in many cases, yet the public and the pros have NEVER been more bullish. For all that bullishness and the new flood of money into mutual funds this year we are actually down on the year measured by most indexes. As you can see, no amount of reality can shake people from their beliefs.

[mastein]

13. CBNC is Crappy BS Network Channel, but Marketplace ROCKS

but, I also have to give a plug to great business centered show, that I have been listening to for 10 years now. Marketplace, distributed by Public Radio International (PRI) has been on the scene for 15 years now. THey have won a slew of awards including at least 2 Peabody Awards for their reporting. And since they are part of the Public Radio family, you can be assured they report on more than just board room antics etc. They have a resident analyst who they speak to once a week and that is it, unless there is a major move to justify them speaking to him mid-week. They also do lots of stories on the "personal" side of business, that is the cost to workers of producing goods and services and or compensation, not just on the TOP end. For additional info. goto www.marketplace.org.

No I am not a paid endorser, I just like the damned show.