CNBC's "Big Brother" Media

We don't need to wait for a government-controlled media to see 'Big Brother' style media in action.


Simply watch CNBC.


The network seems to be aiming to make mediocrity its watchword. Consider this morning's program.


For two hours, upward failure Jon Corzine was a guest-host. Constantly referred to as "Governor," Corzine primped and opined with an assumed wisdom which belies his actual record.


Originally a Goldman Sachs bond trader, Corzine first stumbled by trying to take the firm public when co-running the place. Although many outside the finance world don't understand, Corzine was deposed by his partners, who subsequently sold the firm to the investing public for much more than Corzine wanted, via an IPO.


From this failure, Corzine moved to ape New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, promptly buying the next Senate seat up for election. Eventually tiring of serving in the minority, Corzine again showed his awful sense of timing by leaving the Senate to buy the NJ governorship just before the Democrats retook the upper chamber in Washington. So instead of chairing a Senate committee, Corzine ended up with the real headache of wrestling with the finances of his dysfunctional state. He lost re-election this past November.


Why anyone would invite this clown onto a major business cable television program is beyond me.


Joining Corzine, for 'balance,' for one segment, was Howard Dean, the failed Democratic presidential candidate.

Corzine sagely nodded his bearded head and tut-tutted over incoming House Speaker Boehner's being advised by this mornings lead staff editorial in the Wall Street Journal to lay the basis for a GOP president in 2012. Dean continued his mad-dog, illogical ranting on higher taxes.

For his part, Corizne, who claims to read the WSJ, evidently missed this editorial, and went on to claim that deficit reduction just has to include hefy tax increases- there's no other way!

You might ask yourself what a business network is doing using explicitly political icons- failed, at that- on its lead morning program? Good question.

If analysis of governmental actions and their impacts on business were the point, surely there are less-partisan, more qualified guests/hosts.

Who needs a government-run media when CNBC does the job so nicely in the private sector? Thank God you can also watch Fox News.

Howard Dean's Taxation Delusions On CNBC

I happened to view an exchange this morning on CNBC between former CBO head Douglas Holz-Eakins and former Vermont governor and DNC chair Howard Dean. It was most illuminating.

In a discussion regarding fiscal responsibility and tax policies, Dean railed against 'giving tax cuts to the rich' while borrowing the money for them from China.

It was truly laughable that Dean didn't see the warped perspectives embedded in his comments. To wit, Dean, being an uber-liberal, naturally assumes all of your income is, in reality, the government's. Letting you keep any of it is a gift for which you should be on bended knee, kissing the feet of your political masters.

Thus, letting you keep any more of your income than you already do, while liberals- and conservatives- spend more than the government collects in taxes, and cover the difference by borrowing from our enemies, like China, is considered folly by said uber-liberals, Dean included.

When confronted by co-anchor Joe Kernen and Holz-Eakins with the reality that soaking the income of the upper percentiles of income-earners still only generates about $94B, assuming no changes by said wealthy in declared income, against the trillions in deficits, Dean only continued to wail that we were borrowing from the Chinese to 'give tax breaks to the rich.'

Standard far-left stuff, but ludicrous when contrasted with the fact that all of the incomes of the wealthy still won't make a dent in the spending binge on which our liberal Democratic Congress and Wonderboy have been.

If you think about it, aren't our wealth-transfer payment programs the ones which are deemed 'non-discretionary' and breaking our budgets? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and related transfers, enacted with no global or macro budgetary conditionality? As communal, unlimited spending pots, the withdrawals from which are on individual eligibility bases, not apportioned and pro-rated based upon budgetary limitations?

It's ridiculous! Thanks to Congressional idiocy in the 1930s and 1960s, we've elevated the poor and destitute ahead of every other need of our Republic. They never are required to share in the economies and belt-tightening shared by our other national governmental spending and taxation realities.

I don't think I've ever seen so clear a picture of the nonsensical liberal ethos and belief system than in Howard Dean's hysterically comical attitude and comments this morning on CNBC. It was straight out of Socialism 101.

'All income belongs to the people. The government is the people. The poor receive first consideration for spending by the government, on behalf of the people, i.e., the government.'

The actual value-producing income-earners are simply presumed to be fatted cattle to be milked and, in time, through death taxes, slaughtered for the benefits of the non-working and/or poor.

Observations On Hillary's Lead Among Democratic Presidential Candidates

A seasoned newsman and political reporter, now writing for other purposes, was discussing the two party's Presidential contenders with me at a dinner party last Saturday night.


We agreed that Obama Bim Baden is too green and immature to win his party's nomination. Then, again, we also agreed that Hillary is too brittle.

As I mused about how much money she has raised, my colleague noted what happened in the 2004 Democratic Presidential race.

Not being a registered Dem, I don't recall the details. He asked me to remember Howard Dean's lead in Iowa, followed by, I believe, his victory in New Hampshire? He was the guy to beat.

Then he did that roar thing on camera. And his campaign began to unravel, losing momentum. To be candid, I had quite forgotten this.

My colleague's point was, despite Dean's money and momentum, he managed to critically, mortally wound himself while in the lead, and lost the nomination to Kerry.

That's probably why, when asked about running a near-perfect campaign to date, Hillary found some wood nearby to knock on, smiling that silly, forced grin of hers.

There's still a lot of time and uncontrollable events to unfold before the last primary vote is counted.

Wouldn't it be wild if someone like Edwards or, even less likely, Richardson, actually makes a fight of the Democratic nomination?

Most Presidential races feature a few surprises, and I have this feeling that, with everyone already expecting Hillary in the Oval Office come 2009, that's just what won't occur.