Sometimes, I do feel somewhat alone here on this blog, trying to seek out the truth and facts from the lies and spin. So it is a blessed relief to find that I have some support out there from websites like politifact.com and factcheck.org.
PolitiFact is the home of the Truth-o-meter, as seen on CNN International’s Political Mann. It comes from the St Petersberg Times from St Petersburg, Tampa Bay, Florida. They fact check statements that come out of the mouths of politicians, lobbyists, pressure groups, and the propoganda that gets sent out in leaflets and chain e-mails.
FactCheck comes from the Annenberg Public Policy Centre of the University Of Pennsylvania. The centre is funded by The Annenberg Foundation, who are also a co-funder of the PBS programme “Washington Week”.
Please visit the above links, as we all together will work towards keeping the politicians honest.
I only just spotted this but recently, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown devoted an entire programme to the healthcare reform debate that is consuming America’s politicians, politicos and those with an interest, which is in reality, everyone.
The video I am posting here is of the full programme, minus commercials, all 43 minutes of it. You might not want to take it all in in one sitting, it took me two. But I implore everyone to watch this, if you haven’t already, or indeed watch it again. Because there are certain inexorable inalienable truths that Keith exposes in this Special Comment, and it is worth watching if even just for that.
I have a lot of respect for the blog "Crooks And Liars". John Amato and team do a wonderful job of highlighting those who are not in touch with reality, and this time they've done it again; only not quite the way they probably thought.
The entry they highlight is from something called "The Exiled" It seems to try and present itself the same way the Huffington Post does, as an internet newspaper. However, this piece that Crooks and Liars highlighted is nothing more than an uninformed rant.
The Truthseeker knows things that apparently this uninformed buffoon doesn't seem to. Here's what he said in his piece...
"Today, Drudge and the rightwingers are going crazy red-alerting CNBC’s Rick Santelli as some kind of righteous anti-Obama freemarket revolutionary. There’s a clip of him standing in the middle of the Chicago Exchange, yelling: “The government is promoting bad behavior! Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages?!!!! This is America!!!!!” (Does anyone recall Santelli screaming like this over the much larger bailout of his Wall Street friends? Or does he only squeal when regular middle-class Americans get some help?) The big question for Santelli is this: Why does this idiot, who talked about how the global economy was “healthy” and America’s soon would be too, still have a job?
On September 2 of last year, just two weeks before the financial markets crashed and we entered this global depression, he was on the same CNBC program, standing in the same stock exchange, saying that the economy is healthy and that the reason there’s talk of recession is just because the business media was itself in a recession.
Point is: Santelli is a dumbfuck tool who should be fired for misleading his viewers, and sued for all he’s worth for serving Wall Street’s interests against his own viewers’."
So suddenly because the "dredge" report highlights something CNBC's Rick Santelli says, this makes Rick Santelli a fair target? You might as well target everyone who thought the economy was looking good before the crash did happen, cos there were a lot of people who didn't think there was anything wrong.
Oh and by the way, if you want to watch an informed overview of how the crash actually took place, may I suggest you watch the WGBH/PBS documentary "Frontline: Inside The Meltdown". It's a very informative documentary that tells the facts of how rumourmongers caused the whole damn crisis. Just like DAB in the UK has been talked down for a long time by the commercial media, leading to a crisis of confidence in the platform, so the whole US economy was basically talked down, piece by piece, from Bear Stearns onwards. You can watch the whole documentary online, wherever you are in the world.
It doesn't help matters that the entire piece is riddled with factual errors that completely undermine his argument. I've highlighted the errors, so you can see what is truly wrong. He said and I quote...
"...On September 2 last year, just two weeks before the financial markets crashed and we entered this global depression, he was on the same CNBC program, standing in the same stock exchange..."
Standing in the same STOCK exchange??? Rick Santelli reports from The Chicago Board Of Trade, the CBOT. He doesn't report from the NYSE, the AMEX or the NASDAQ, but from the Chicago Board Of Trade. It is NOT a stock exchange. To use the technical term, it is a "bond pit". The CBOT does not trade shares, it trades bonds, corporate and government bonds. You'll often hear the term "yield curve". This refers to the yields on various government bonds, that are most widely watched. The Yield Curve begins at the low end with the 3-month bond, then 6 month, then 1 year, then 2 year, 5 year, 10 year and 30 year government bond. The short end of the curve, 3 month to 1 year, usually yields less than the high end, the 10 year and 30 year bonds. Should that be the other way around, it is the yield curve has been "inverted".
Oh and I know I said that corporate bonds are traded there, and you might say "well, aren't they similar to shares?" Not really. They are bonds, therefore they are promises, a share is a part ownership. However at the moment, the corporate bond market is about as worthless as the stock market, so most bond traders are looking toward the government bond market, as a means of protecting investment value in a falling stock market, also known as a bear market. Such a move from stocks to bonds are often refered to as a "flight to quality". When that happens, you'll usually find the price of Gold rises too, as Gold is another popular "flight to quality" destination.
The bond market has nothing to do with Wall Street, and the stock markets, other than being a popular flight to quality destination for traders. The CBOT is more closely linked to the Federal Reserve and Washington DC, than it is to the stock markets and Wall Street, New York.
Another mistake was this one...
"There’s a clip of him standing in the middle of the Chicago Exchange, yelling: “The government is promoting bad behavior! Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages?!!!! This is America!!!!!” (Does anyone recall Santelli screaming like this over the much larger bailout of his Wall Street friends? Or does he only squeal when regular middle-class Americans get some help?)"
This shows just how little this idiot actually knows. A quick look at Rick Santelli's profile, shows that he's never traded stocks ever. Derivatives, options, Gold, foreign exchange, but never stocks. Some people seem to use "Wall Street" as a generic term for all kinds of financial market trading. The only things actually traded on Wall Street, where ONLY the NYSE is based, is stocks. The NASDAQ is actually based in Times Square, New York, whilst the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), now known as NYSE Alternext US (heck, I still prefer calling it the AMEX), is actually based in Trinity Place. This kind of lazy use of terminology is what creates a false idea of what actually happens. In situations like this, facts and truth are what you should looking for.
Remember, CNBC is NOT Fox Business. Fox Business is where you find business news for the Republican audience, CNBC have been around for 20 years, and some of their crew were involved in FNN, which started back in 1981. They know their stuff, and are a trustworthy, credible source. DO NOT confuse them with someone like Fox Business. It seems that FOX wanted people to start questioning the credibility of CNBC by deliberately politicising the idea of business news. Please do not fall for this, it is how they worked their way into overtaking the much more credible CNN back in 2001, and they are trying to do same again to CNBC in business news. Do not fall for the same trick twice!
