Look who passes as a "populist" to the media elite
February 20, 2009 10:28 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Yep, the CNBC reporter who yesterday claimed the all-white, all-male traders surrounding him on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange represented a cross-section of America. In fact, at one point on Thursday, CNBC's Rick Santelli turned to face the floor, extended his arms toward the six-figure salaried employees and announced, "This is America!"
Ah, life inside the CNBC bubble.
But that didn't stop the out-of-touch press from anointing Santelli a "populist," following his rant against the Obama housing recovery plan and how the president was leading the country down the road to communism, which is what Santelli yesterday clearly suggested during his on-air meltdown.
So let's take a look at Santelli's "populist" credentials, as viewed from his 2007 bio posted at the Milken Institute's Global Conference, held at Los Angeles' Beverly Hilton:
Rick Santelli is a Bond Market Reporter for CNBC. He joined CNBC Business News as on-air editor in 1999, reporting from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. His focus is primarily on interest rates, foreign exchange and the Federal Reserve. A veteran trader and financial executive, Santelli has provided live reports on the markets in print and on local and national radio and television. He joined CNBC from the Institutional Financial Futures and Options division at Sanwa Futures. There, he was a vice president, handling institutional trading and hedge accounts for a variety of futures related products. Prior to that, Santelli worked as vice president of Institutional Futures and Options at Rand Financial Services Inc., served as managing director at the Derivative Products Group of Geldermann Inc., and was vice president in charge of Interest Rate Futures and Options at the Chicago Board of Trade for Drexel Burnham Lambert. Santelli began his career in 1979 as a trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a variety of markets. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.
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Precisely, Eric. This is the gray area where CNBC and FNC are creating confusion for Americans.
Of course a free-market loon like Santelli who has made a livelihood as a trader and hedge fund artist will not want $$ to go to those poor sorry saps who were hoodwinked by mortgage bankers that they could afford a big house. That is how they make their $$.
He is not an economist. He is trying to get rich off speculation and taking other people's money. Bail out his Wall Street buddies, not the "losers", as he calls them, that are losing their homes.
I mean, after all, no one FORCED them to take the sub-prime mortgage being offered by these firms!