Tuesday After Lunch Money Memo -The Daily Show vs CNBC

"Unceasing change turns the wheel of life,
and reality is shown in all its many forms."

You can't make this stuff up.

Just when you get totally discouraged about any sort of reality entering into the financial "TeeVee" space in our living rooms, John Stewart and the no-doubt motley staff of Daily Show mavens show up.  And Stewart and his crew do it with just enough satire to constitute true petard hoisting.

Using CNBC's own video against them, John Stewart skewers CNBC and more than makes up for the lack of financial coverage on the Daily Show the past few years.  (Politics yes, money no, seems to have been their mantra…)

The anti-Santelli segment is over 8 minutes long, and can be viewed at www.financialfoghorn.com.

It would perhaps also be piling on to mention that Barron's has done TWO articles on suspicious recommendations made by Jim Cramer on his show in the past year.  The least damning indictment of those articles last March stated that screaming Jim had made over 9000 stock recommendations on his shows during his first three years on the air.  (9000 picks divided by 750 shows equals approximately 12 picks per show.)

The Association of State Securities Regulators said back in the good old 90's that a high volume of trades per day means that day traders have to be making an unbelievably high return (They said 53% per year on the money.) to just break even after commissions were factored in.

Face it, CNBC is shill TV.  Wall Street loves him and supports him with millions in advertising dollars.  CNBC runs his show three times a day.  It's said to be the most profitable show on their entire cable network.  The whole game is to keep the suckers trading…and trading in the things the Street wants to get out of.

Cramer, who has admitted to rigging prices of shares when he ran his own hedge fund, is Wall Street's personification of the cash cow.  Let the sound effects and the screaming continue.  He's entertainment, NOT investor education.

At YouTube is also the John Stewart follow up last night.  The show on Monday March 9, 2009 dealt with CNBC's "complaint" about Cramer not "exactly" recommending Bear Stearns in the week before they went broke.  As Stewart showed with more CNBC video, Cramer didn't.  He recommended buying Bear 7 weeks before they went broke.

CNBC isn't delivering news that investors need.  They're helping Wall Street fleece investors.  Get thee to the web.

Michael McGowan,

The Financial Foghorn, and author of

"Financial Foghorn's Guide to Gold–

Get Rich, Get Happy, and Get to Heaven

with Monetary Metals."