Outrage and Doing Something...

Yesterday, I started a campaign to unite all sim city 4 users in boycotting user rendered AIG buildings from use in game play.

Not really...

That would be dumb.

I did, however, finally take the time to watch the Jon Stewart interview with Kramer. Now, these days I'm usually not a Daily Show watcher. I recall, however, when Stewart first made headlines with his argument on CNN's Crossfire. News is transitioning in this country, and that's natural. Newspapers will continue to die and be replaced by online webzines and blogs, but the TV has reigned supreme for a good long while now, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Could be proven wrong by Steve Jobs, but for now that's my view on things.

Stewart apparently got into a spat over comments he made about CNBC's lack of forsight and responsible reporting in the years leading up to the recession. I expected to see a couple of jabs and zingers but was pleasantly surprised with Stewart's straightforward questions and angered at Jim Kramer's bumbling red-faced responses. Watch & see for yourself:



A lot of these big corporations handle business the way Donald Trump handles real estate. Trump will take out large amounts of money for projects so lavish that he owns the bank. The banks then have a vested interest in seeing to it that the investment succeeds. AIG, it has been said, is a company so large - and an underwriter to so many - that both Bush and Obama have seen it necessary to infuse large amounts of taxpayer dollars into it and other companies like it.

Now I'm not a crazy hippie corporation hater. I like my Nike shoes, long for a MacBook and even the dreaded McDonald's. Hell, I even have the long term goal of owning a development firm and the short term goal of molding Baroke into a clothing company different from any other before it (and maybe, make a profit). While I am no dynamo - yet - I do know that it takes a lot of guts and courage to start your own business, and then a lot of hard work if you want to grow it into something you can live off of. It pisses me off that while our money is being lent to these cumbersome giants, there are no loans for people who want to start their own piece of the still freest market in the world. One of the goals of all this TARP and recovery spending is to free up credit to provide capital. I'm hoping that the public outrage will make the banks think twice about doing anything really dumb with their taxpayer dollars, and get some of this credit flowing.

I'm not an economics expert or anything - but that's just the point - these news outlets (especially the financially specialized ones) need to be told that we expect sound advice and responsible reporting. Not the speculation and sensationlism that has fueled so many bubbles in our nation's history. I guess what I'm getting at is, you could sign the petition (here: http://fixcnbc.com/) and perhaps make a difference. Hell, it works when the Evangelicals call the FCC over boobies!