Thursday, March 12, 2009

Puncturing the balloon

James Poniewozik tells it like it is. Money quote:

CNBC's reaction is colored by its stressed-out day trader's focus on the short term. When ordinary people think about the economy, they think about jobs, college, retirement. Sure, the stock market affects them in the long run — but so do job security and the threat of getting wiped out by health-care bills. When CNBC considers the economy, it means Wall Street's numbers that day, that hour, that minute. CNBC may pay lip service to the long term, but it has the time horizon of a fruit fly.

The daily change in the various stock markets are hugely overemphasized as a thermometer of the economy. And CNBC rides that wave all day, every day. They know no other beach, in fact.

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