At the risk of becoming one of the people of the "blogosphere" that CNBC's Dennis Kneale doesn't like, he does seem a little irritating, doesn't he? He always seems to be yelling at viewers for some reason, or at the very least trying to convince you he's right, really really hard.
In the video below, he talks about how he thinks the economy is getting much better, and talks about various web sites that have called him out on it. (Takes a little while to get to that part but it's worth watching the first couple minutes of dry money talk.)
Question: what's better than talking to a financial reporter about the current economic/banking crisis? Answer: talking to a hungover financial reporter about the current economic/banking crisis! Charlie Gasparino, who seems to provide CNBC fans with a wacky moment at least once a month, was on the air this morning and told his coworkers (and America) that he had a "massive" hangover because he partied last night, downing had eight martinis.
Something tells me that this reality show will cause a little bit of controversy.
Endemol, the people who bring you Big Brother and other shows, has another reality show in the works titled Someone's Gotta Go. It will feature 10 contestants who live together in a house (a la Big Brother and The Real World), but there's one catch: there's no bathroom! The one who can hold things in the longest wins $500,000 and a year's supply of bathroom tissue.
Well, OK, that's not the premise, but it's actually not as insulting and embarrassing as the actual premise of the show. Someone's Gotta Go will feature employees of a real company who give a pay cut to a fellow employee and vote out a fellow employee at the end of each show. Please note that these are real employees at a real company who are really going to lose their jobs, not to mention have their personal details revealed on national television.
This morning, for some reason, I had the CBS Early Show on. I wasn't watching it per se, until I started noticing a somewhat disturbing trend. I'd picked up on it during my local news broadcasts as well, but this was the first national news program I'd seen it on (no I don't watch Katie Couric or Brian Williams, that's what the internets are for). Every single story or topic they covered involved some mention of the bad economy and the recession.
It started with a segment about singles finding love. Harmless enough. "In these tough economic times, is it possible to find love without spending a lot of money?" "Oh yes" blah blah blah. That went on for way too long talking about budget dating and how you can't judge a person for being unemployed and it's about their heart not their wallet. Okay, fair enough. But then we lead to the next segment. Cooking with Chef Boy-R-Dee or whatever and it's how to make meatballs on a budget. Because in these tough economic times who can possibly afford meat and pasta sauce?
It's always a conundrum figuring out what to spend money on during tough economic times - not only for us, but also for TV networks trying to publicize their shows. If we don't pay our mortgage, we lose the house. If the networks don't spend money on their shows, they risk going down the tube.
The BBC is getting slammed for spending too much money on the launch party for Merlin, a TV series that delves into the early life of the legendary sorcerer. I have a couple of thoughts on this. The first is that the amount they spent, $70,000, doesn't seem like that much for a launch party. In fact, it seems downright reasonable.
While I realize that the BBC has started pink-slipping their employees, the fact of the matter is that if they don't publicize their shows, they won't have any to publicize and, therefore, won't need any employees anyway. Like any marketing, the products don't go out there and sell themselves. You have to spend money to get the word out.
The theory is that because of the bad economy, combined with the writers strike earlier this year and advertising dollars are down across the board, networks are renewing shows that wouldn't ordinarily be renewed. Besides The Sarah Connor Chronicles, shows like Knight Rider have gotten orders for more episodes.
Judging from the amount of hyperbole being used each day on The Drudge Report, it appears that the nation might be sliding into an economic downturn. While a lot of you might be worried about this, I'm completely confident that the current presidential brain-trust will solve the problem and in no way will it lame-duck its way through the next seven months, leaving the economy's problems for the next poor schlub who gets elected.
So while most of the big media outlets focus on silly, soon-to-be-solved problems like "the economy." I've moved on to bigger and better things. In fact, I believe I have found the number one problem facing the next president and some practical advice on how he might be able to fix it. This is a problem that affects democrats and republicans, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the black and the white. I'm talking, of course, about...
My father is a former economics major who spent 30 years as a mortgage banker before starting his own company (which does economical things so complex that to my simple mind, they might as well be magical). One of the things that constantly irks him is the loaded language that the nightly news uses to describe our economic situation: words like "crisis," "downturn," and, worst of all "recession."
Now, anybody who has spent more than forty seconds online in the last six months can see that we are, more than likely, in the middle of a recession brought on by a downturn in the real estate market because of the current credit crisis. That said, I'd like to ask the question: would we be better off if TV simply lied to us about all of these things?
(S02E02) I think a better title for this episode would be "Outsourcing--Where's the Outrage?"
As we all know, many jobs in the United States, mostly in the computer programming and telemarketing sectors, have been outsourced to foreign companies, mainly to India. Outsourcing continues to be a hot topic in this country, and I think it would be safe to say that the majority of American workers abhor the idea of an American-based company outsourcing American jobs to another country in order to save on labor costs and increase their own profits. I'm sure there are plenty of people who say outsourcing is a good thing, but I haven't been able to find them.
This was one of those situations where you hear that
someone has died, and that they hosted a show that is no longer on the air, and you think, "I thought that show
was still on the air?"
Louis Rukeyser hosted Wall Street Week on PBS from 1970 to 2002. He was
also a writer and lecturer, and worked for years at ABC as a correspondent. He died yesterday of multiple myleloma, a
bone cancer.
Something tells me that this reality show will cause a little bit of controversy.
This morning, for some reason, I had the CBS Early Show on. I wasn't watching it per se, until I started noticing a somewhat disturbing trend. I'd picked up on it during my local news broadcasts as well, but this was the first national news program I'd seen it on (no I don't watch Katie Couric or Brian Williams, that's what the internets are for). Every single story or topic they covered involved some mention of the bad economy and the recession. 
It's always a conundrum figuring out what to spend money on during tough economic times - not only for us, but also for TV networks trying to publicize their shows. If we don't pay our mortgage, we lose the house. If the networks don't spend money on their shows, they risk going down the tube. 
You never heard John McCain or Barack Obama talking about this on the campaign trail.
Judging from the amount of hyperbole being used each day on The Drudge Report, it appears that the nation might be sliding into an economic downturn. While a lot of you might be worried about this, I'm completely confident that the current presidential brain-trust will solve the problem and in no way will it lame-duck its way through the next seven months, leaving the economy's problems for the next poor schlub who gets elected.
My father is a former economics major who spent 30 years as a mortgage banker before starting his own company (which does economical things so complex that to my simple mind, they might as well be magical). One of the things that constantly irks him is the loaded language that the nightly news uses to describe our economic situation: words like "crisis," "downturn," and, worst of all "recession."
(S02E02) I think a better title for this episode would be "Outsourcing--Where's the Outrage?"
This was one of those situations where you hear that
someone has died, and that they hosted a show that is no longer on the air, and you think, "I thought that show
was still on the air?"
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