March 16, 2009
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The best commentary on television
Here’s a quote from quite possibly the brightest and sharpest commentators on television today.
“These guys at these companies were on a sherman’s march through their companies financed by our 401K’s and all the incentives of their companies were for short term profit. And they burned the fucking house down with our money and walked away rich as hell. And you guys knew that that was going on.”
And where does this commentator show up? Not on any network television channel during their prime time news programs or their round table discussion groups. Not on CNN or Fox News and CNBC or even NPR. Nope. He has a late night comedy show on Comedy Central. His name, of course, is Jon Stewart.
The quote in question comes from an astounding interview of Jim Cramer by Jon Stewart last Thursday night. Stewart and his show’s writers did an astounding job in this interview and all the segments leading up to it. He really cuts straight to the heart of the financial crises and what it means for real people.
Here are the videos of that encounter and the controversy leading up to it:
In case you didn’t feel like watching them all here are a few more really poignant quotes from the interview.
“It is this idea that the financial news networks are not just guilty of a sin of ommision but a sin of commission. They are actually in bed with them. … This thing was ten years in the making, and it’s not going to get fixed tomorrow. But the idea that you could have on the guys from Baer Sterns and Meryll Lynch, the guys that had leveraged 35 to one and then blame mortgage holders, I mean that’s insanity.”
“There are two markets. One that has been sold to us as long term. Put your money in 401Ks, put your money in pensions. And just leave it there, don’t worry about it. It will all be fine. And then there’s this other market, this real market that’s occurring in the back room. Where giant piles of money are going in and out and people are trading them and it’s transactional and it’s fast. But it’s dangerous. It’s ethically dubious. And it hurts that long term market.”
“It feels like we are capitalizing your adventure. By our pensions. And that it’s a game that you know, that you know is going on, but that you go television as a financial network and pretend isn’t happening.”
“You knew what the banks were doing and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was. And so that now to pretend that this was some sort of crazy once in a life time Tsunami that nobody could have seen coming is disingenous at best and criminal at worst.”
I honestly don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have the Daily Show. I am desperately grateful for its existence.
Comments (3)
How did I miss this? Ugh.
Yes! I love Jon Stewart. Only a handful of people are really willing to stick their necks out and speak the truth. Steven Colbert at the dinner for the press last year(?) was one of my happiest moments on this planet. You can see it on YouTube. I believe these two men are real human beings. Wow. Huh?
@AmericanDaughter - Yeah! I remember that. It was sheer genius. These two are amazing.