CNBC Scams America Again

[Donnachaidh]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/36001/cnbc-scams-america-again

The headline that topped the Drudge Report Tuesday morning had frightening news for its millions of readers: yet another credit ratings agency downgraded America's debt, this time to "C"--at or near "junk" status in the letter-rating scales used by the big three ratings agencies, Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch. Clicking on the link takes the reader to a CNBC article <1> headlined, "US Debt Rating Should Be ‘C’: Independent Agency."

The agency turns out to be not one of the big three but an outfit called Weiss Ratings. Scratch the surface, and it turns out that Weiss Ratings is far from “independent,” and the rating, itself, is bogus. Weiss Ratings, headed by Martin D. Weiss, an investment advisor who has more than once run afoul of the SEC, downgraded US debt to "C" (which the article says is equivalent to BBB- or "near-junk" status) despite that the fact that the last time the US defaulted on external and domestic debt obligations was 1790 <2>. Even the Economist has acknowledged <3>, "Talk of Amer
Meanwhile, CNBC failed to disclose the ratings agency has a content-distribution licensing agreement with TheStreet.com <4>, whose chairman and co-founder is CNBC host Jim Cramer.

Cramer's company owned Weiss Ratings until last year, when TheStreet.com sold it back to Weiss for an undisclosed sum. Since then Weiss and Cramer's firm TheStreet.com have had a cross-licensing agreement to promote each other's ratings. CNBC should have done journalistic due diligence. But instead it hyped the rating. At the very least, portraying a ratings agency as "independent" on CNBC when a top CNBC on-air personality has a business interest in that relationship is misleading.

Jim Cramer has a history of making controversial investment calls. The host of the popular CNBC show "Mad Money" has come under fire from the New York Times and Jon Stewart's Daily Show <5> for repeatedly misleading his viewers. In a videotaped interview in 2006, Cramer boasted about how to manipulate stock prices by spreading false rumors.

More at the link --

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[nykym]

2. Maybe the Government

should start rating the rating agency's.

[still_one]

3. Funny how they don't bring up the record of S&P, Moody's or Fitch, and how they not only dropped the

ball by rating garbage as investment grade before the financial collapse

Those rating agencies should have lost all their credibility then, and been driven out of business

The conflict of interest is so evident it is pathetic

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Just for perspective,

Cramer's show is the highest rated on CNBC, which is not saying much. His best total for a day seems to be at around half a million viewers, in a nation of well over 300 million. This means that a vast majority of Americans do not even know who he is. His influence is a bit short of 'scamming America'. He's a snake oil shill, to be sure. Just not a widely heard shill.

[Capitalocracy]

5. Tell me if I'm wrong here

Another credit rating agency has downgraded American debt.

Low Fed interest rates are making it possible for banks to borrow all the money they want, and they're investing it right back into U.S. debt, leading to a gigantic backdoor bailout.

If you downgrade American debt, it might lead to an increase in bond interest rates.

Therefore, the credit rating agencies, which are paid by the banks, might want the bond interest rate to increase to inflate the size of that backdoor bailout.

Is it tinfoil hat time for me? :tinfoilhat:

[orwell]

6. Morons...

...exposing themselves everyday.

But since the country is filled with economic illiterates they get away with it.

Meanwhile, gleeful commodities traders leverage the herd's stupidity into millions of dollars.

(But if they think the dollar is worthless, why do they spend so much time chasing it?)

And the world turns round and round...

[discocrisco01]

7. Maybe We Should Become The Commodities Traders

[LatteLibertine]

8. The Fed + Goldman Sachs + Government corruption = average Joe fucked