Smokies Light

I've been watching CNBC quite a bit of late. The market volatility and general economic gloom and doom make it somewhat of an interesting little show these days. The general theme of the show is to have very highly paid analysts on all day long telling us what's gonna happen next. It would be interesting if they kept a track record of what these people said six months, one year, or two years ago and see how it played out. I don't recall talk of mortgage and banking crises by any of these people a few months or a year ago. But in the larger picture, the anchors and guests lack context. I'm not sure if context is the right word; I think the right word is they lack a sense of humanity, a soul, with perhaps the exception of Ron Insana who could possibly be a closet human being. It's not that these people are intentionally immoral or amoral; they simply have no concept of what morality is, that economies exist to serve and better the lives of individuals, families, and societies, not the other way around. I remember the days when people like Larry Kudlow and Cramer were simply caricatures in TV sitcoms, the Mr. Drysdale, the Mr. Mooney, the Eddie Haskell. They were to be laughed at with a subtle scorn, the type of person your kids should not try to emulate. Try watching Kudlow with the volume down; he's a real hoot the way he dresses, and he looks so serious, a real buffoon. Then you turn the volume up and realize he is not acting, that the network that gives him a platform is not putting on a TV sitcom. They are serious. A real Mr. Potter is right there on the screen, doing his part to turn what's left of our Bedford Falls of a nation into Pottersville right before your very eyes.