And where was the corporate mainstream press -- which covers the financial industry with countless "reporters" -- while the walls of Wall Street were crumbling? They were pumping up the oligarchy and their own corporate stock with misleading information and dereliction of duty (with, again, some rare exceptions) in reporting the impending debacle. That's why America needs a new media, one responsive to the public, not the self-interest of the corporate ownership of the press. Mark Karlin, Buzzflash Editorial, In 8 1/2 Minutes, Jon Stewart Devastates CNBC and Its Destructive Boosterism of Failed Wall Street Scams
What happened on Wall Street was not due to poor people over reaching; it was the result of super-rich people gambling with the fate of our economy (as allowed by the systematic "Reagan Revolution" de-regulation), losing it all (as the mainstream financial media -- particularly television -- cheered them on), and then asking for a hundreds of billions of dollars in limousine welfare. Mark Karlin, Buzzflash Editorial, Wall Street on Welfare: The Tax Payers Pick Up the Trillion Dollar Tab for River Boat Gamblers on the Dole, 3-7-09
The Binge is Over. Self-Mugged, Santelli, Kudlow, Cramer, et al, Gibber Away. Meanwhile, Krugman Offers Tough Love & Jon Stewart Offers Hard News
By Richard Power
We have heard all of this before.
"No one could have foreseen terrorists flying planes into buildings," they said. And yet our intelligence professionals warned them in the months preceding 9/11.
"No one could have foreseen the ferocious insurgency in Iraq," they said. And yet our military professionals warned them before they even launched their foolish military adventure.
"No one could have foreseen the levees breaking in New Orleans," they said. And yet our emergency professionals warned them in the days before Katrina made land fall.
They act as if no one saw this crisis coming. They act as if there were no John the Baptists in the Wilderness beyond Wall Street. But they were all Herods who only had eyes and ears for Salome.
The global financial meltdown and the economic depression it has resulted in constitute a powerful rebuke not only of the laissez-faire cult of Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan, but also of the business news media that shilled for it over the last three decades.
I am not an economist, nor am I a businessman, but Words of Power, and others in the progressive blogosphere and on progressive talk radio, have done a better job of warning you about what was coming than the financial news channels on cable, and we did it simply by tracking the commentary of Krugman, Stiglitz, Galbraith, David Walker and others. (For corroboration, browse the Words of Power Economic Security Archive.)
And in this ongoing effort, I commend two vital communications to you:
First, Paul Krugman's latest tough love missive on the Obama administration's so far seemingly ineffectual approach to the banking crisis.
Second, Jon Stewart's shocking 8 and a half minute expose revealing the fraud that is the US business news media.
Yes, I am offering you a Nobel Prize winner in one hand, and brilliant, diamond-hard journalism from Comedy Central in the other. That is the best there is to offer, that is where we are in the USA today.
The reality is that when it comes to dealing with the banks, the Obama administration is dithering. Policy is stuck in a holding pattern. ...
The truth is that the Bernanke-Geithner plan - the plan the administration keeps floating, in slightly different versions - isn't going to fly. ...
So why has this zombie idea - it keeps being killed, but it keeps coming back - taken such a powerful grip?
The answer, I fear, is that officials still aren't willing to face the facts. They don't want to face up to the dire state of major financial institutions because it's very hard to rescue an essentially insolvent bank without, at least temporarily, taking it over. And temporary nationalization is still, apparently, considered unthinkable. Paul Krugman, International Herald Tribune, 3-6-09
[NOTE: If you receive Words of Power via the free e-mail subscription, you will have to click on this link to play the video, because it can't be embedded in the e-mail message.)
Jon Stewart Eviscerates CNBC and Rick Santelli
For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, click here.
For Words of Power's archive of posts on Corporate News Media Complicity, Power of Alternative Media, Propaganda & Freedom, click here.
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
economic security, Jon Stewart, Paul Krugman, News Media, Richard Power, Words of Power
