Bernie Madoff... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

Drobbins, he is 70...So he hopefully has a few extra years to rot in jail.

Michael R., Thanks for the info.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It all depends on the sentence. Anything greater than 25 years, and he goes to a maximum security prison where you'd best not drop the soap. That's why a lengthy sentence is important, even though he probably won't live another 25 years; a lighter sentence carries the possibility of a white-collar prison.

Personally, I was aghast at the resources that the NYPD had to expend to keep him under house arrest in his luxury penthouse when the judge wouldn't revoke his bail. I was glad to see him go to jail after his guilty plea. This guy's the very definition of a flight risk.

 

[Michael Reuben]

If I thought waterboarding were ever justified (and I don't), and if its use on anyone could restore confidence in the financial system (and it wouldn't), Bernie Madoff wouldn't be on the list. He's a thief -- on a huge scale, yes, but he didn't do anything that hasn't been done many times in the past without rocking the financial system.

By contrast, what CNBC has done for the last few years is a relatively new phenomenon, and as Jon Stewart remarked after watching a clip of one of Ms. Burnett's colleagues doing a fawning interview with Allen Stanford, another huge Ponzi schemer, "I don't know which guy I'd rather see in jail."

So, Ms. Burnett, if you truly think waterboarding the guilty will help restore confidence in the the financial system, the line forms to the right. Get in behind Jim Cramer.

 

[Francois Caron]

It's pretty pathetic when the "fake" news show does a better job of exposing this mess than the "real" news shows who, instead of doing their jobs, have made the situation worse over the years.

 

[Brian Perry]

I'm not a big Cramer fan, but I think CNBC is getting an unfair rap. As with any media outlet that takes advertising, CNBC cannot easily bite the hand that feeds it. How many people burned by purchasing a GM car wish that the glowing review in Motor Trend was a bit more honest? No, buying a car is not as important as deciding where to invest, but the principle is the same...people need to take these pundits' comments with a grain of salt.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Then, with all due respect, what's the point of having a CNBC at all? You might as well just have the stock ticker running full-screen. Editorial independence is a cornerstone of journalism, which is why you can have a newspaper review that pans a book or movie right next to a quarter page ad for said book or movie. CNBC has always been glorified entertainment. In normal times, the pundits spoke with a similar level of accuracy to the local weather man's seven-day forecast. But these are not normal times, and I'd wish the so-called experts would just admit they don't know what the hell is going on instead of pontificating with a false impression of authority.

 

[Holadem]

I couldn't disagree more. CNBC is to the Wall St what the rest of the mainstream media is to Washington: The US media media is an inherent part of the very establishment it is supposed to be the watchdog of. Their mandate to watch that crowd and inform the rest of us is the very last thing on their list of priorities.

At least Cramer appeared contrite. The rest of them don't see anything wrong with what they do.

--
H

 

[Brian Perry]

What exactly do you think they do?

They promote capitalism, they report on the market, they interview people from various backgrounds, many of whom disagree on whether certain policies are good or bad. I don't expect them to blow the cover on the Bernie Madoffs or Stanfords of the world when the SEC can't. (I do question their objectivity with respect to coverage of GE, which is CNBC's parent company.)

Yes, many of their "expert" stock picks have been poor, some famously so. But look at it this way...don't you think someone watching CNBC eventually becomes more knowledgeable and informed about money and the markets? I think so. But CNBC is fundamentally about entertainment.

 

[todd s]

Booyah!!

 

[Michael Reuben]

That's the problem, isn't it? I don't believe it for a second when Cramer says he was "taken in" by the CEOs at Bear Stearns or Lehman. Anyone with his expertise knew or should have known -- and long before 2008 -- that the easy money being made was illusory for most people except a handful of Wall Street players. But CNBC has to serve its advertisers first, not its viewership. What Edward R. Murrow so eloquently warned against, and Paddy Chayevsky so brilliantly predicted in Network, has now become so normal that people just say it as if there were nothing wrong with it: The news is "fundamentally about entertainment". And we've thereby lost a valuable source of oversight that had the potential to be a lot more effective than any regulatory office.

CNBC getting an unfair rap? Only if they continue to call themselves a news channel. They should change their name to E! Business.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I believe that he was. It's not that he didn't know better, it just that he desperately wanted to believe it was so. The reason I don't think he deliberately mislead people is because credibility is the most important asset people like him have. He wouldn't have risked his credibility with that bad advice if he hadn't convinced himself that it was true.

Which isn't to say there isn't a profit motive at work. Newspapers and cable news are filled with the kind of stories you'd once have only found in pop culture magazines like People. And People, in turn, is full of the kind of low-brow trash you'd once have only found in supermarket rags like the National Enquirer.

In addition to the lowering of standards, we're feeling the impact of a massive contraction in the news industry. There are less papers than ever before, with less news in them than ever before, managed by smallest staffs than ever before required to file news for more platforms and mediums than ever before. Pay in serious journalism is so low that only the trust-fund babies and those who can live off their spouse's income have the financial means to break into the industry. Coupled with an increased reliance on wire copy and freelance reporting, and you're left with an array of voices that is far less diverse on the things that matter than ever before. Paper mills are closing everywhere, which has driven up the cost of newsprint exponentially. Print and television advertising is falling off a cliff. Very few newspapers can afford bureaus, and almost all of them have dropped their international desks. Which in turn means less international coverage than ever before, when our fate is more tied in with the rest of the world than at any point in post-war history.

Good journalism will never be a huge profit generator. It requires a large number of people in a lot of different departments, including taking up office space around the country and the globe. It requires working class backgrounds, lower class backgrounds, upper class background, young, old, urban and rural. And it requires an audience that is willing to invest faith in gatekeepers that will point out what they most need to know. Google News allows us to find every article posted about a search query that interests us. But because the control is in our hands, it also gives us the power to ignore everything we're not actively seeking out. And that is an unhealthy development for a democracy.

 

[Michael Reuben]

We're saying the same thing in different words. That's why I included that Cramer "knew or should have known".

Obviously he was swept along by the tide of quick-buck enthusiasm; he's never really shed the mentality of the hedge fund manager that he used to be. But that's precisely the time when someone at CNBC, if it were truly a news organization with real reporters, should have been raising a lot of questions, not fawning over billionaires and repeating CEOs' talking points as gospel and calling it "news".

 

[Brian Perry]

I agree, but I don't know how to remedy that. Sadly, more people would rather read USA Today soundbite articles than read something more in depth. They feel any story that requires them to turn a page is too boring. They want feel-good news.

Even stalwarts like the Chicago Tribune are under extreme financial pressure...I hate to think about how much more corruption would exist if watchdogs such as the Trib weren't around (and the Trib has softened things substantially in recent years, just to make itself financially viable).

 

[RobertR]

I disabused myself of the notion that news organizations are interested in conveying objective truth (including those that loudly trumpet their supposed objectivity) a long time ago. None of them are absent an agenda that often becomes sheer advocacy. I got a personal taste of this recently when I read a local newspaper article that quoted me regarding one of my projects. The wording did not accurately convey my view of the project or the views of the other members of my team, and the choice of words had nothing to do with "inadequate resources" (although I do think it had to do with the desire to sell newspapers, which has always been present).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Even reading USA Today will leave the average reader more informed than someone who does not have a professional news source they trust. USA Today isn't comprehensive, but it at least provides a broad cross-section of news. The one upside to having brevity as an enforced editorial mandate is that the reporters don't have enough room to let their opinions filter in. That's something I've always disliked about the New York Times; the "analysis" in its articles too often comes across as editorializing within the news pages. If an opinion isn't quoted and attributed, it shouldn't be in a news article.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

CNN and MSNBC also pose as news channels, so maybe they share some of the blame, too.

I don't really buy the idea that it's the job of TV channels to catch people committing crimes. Isn't that what law enforcement is for?

A TV channel's job is to sell advertising (except premium channels like HBO) and provide programming which will attract viewers to watch that advertising.

Did CNBC do anything to promote Madoff or encourage people to "invest" with him? I don't know, because I don't watch it... but I don't see how his actions are their fault.

And Holadem, it's a fact that many people DID pursue Madoff and practically beg him to invest their money. He had a good reputation for a long time, and people trusted him. So naturally, word got around, and others started seeking him out.

For those saying prison is not punishment, what do you suggest? I think for a man used to living in luxury, being sent to prison is a bigger punishment than it would be for those of us who never experienced a lavish lifestyle.

I wonder if the lady advocating waterboarding Madoff supports that technique being used on, say, suspected terrorists. For some reason my guess is no.

 

[Michael Reuben]

No one in this discussion has suggested that CNBC, or any other media outlet, is in any way responsible for Madoff's actions.

A CNBC commentator did try to suggest that Madoff was somehow responsible, in part, for the current financial crisis. In response, I opined that CNBC bears more responsibility in that regard than Madoff. That is all.

 

[Brian Perry]

I still don't understand the anger aimed at CNBC. As someone who has the station on in the background all day, I get irritated with some of the regurgitation and can understand why certain elements get panned. But like I said earlier, they are in the business of promoting a product called capitalism.

For the most part, I think CNBC has always advocated that people have a balanced, diversified portfolio with stocks as the centerpiece. And this advice is similar to almost every reputable investment professional you can find. While some of their commercials border on snake-oil ("If gold goes to $2,000 an ounce, the coins I'm holding in my hands could be worth $150,000!"), I think almost all of the guests they interview stay within the bounds of legitimate strategies...i.e., I don't hear anyone touting penny stocks. Jim Cramer, one of the few on-air personalities who makes specific stock picks, actually advocated getting totally out of stocks late last year (when the Dow was about 35% higher).

I don't think most people mistake CNBC for hard-hitting journalism and I don't believe they promote themselves as such.

 

[Michael Reuben]

As I said previously, Brian, I think this boils down to a philosophical difference over what it means when you style yourself a news organization. I agree with you that they're in the business of "promotion", and to me that's the problem right there.

As I said earlier: They should rename the network "E! Business". It better describes what they do.

As to why they're getting so much flak, they brought it on themselves. It started with Rick Santelli's rant, which was too ripe a target for Jon Stewart and The Daily Show to let pass. Then Cramer, spotlight-junkie that he is, couldn't let it slide and made the rounds trying to defend himself. That kept the story alive for another week, until Cramer finally showed up to tell Stewart he'd try to do better. (And if you believe that, I've got an investment fund for ya . . . )

 

[Holadem]

Well, he did appear genuinely contrite...

--
H