EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect: Via Mike Scherer, the people on the financial news shows are idiots who are trying to make you poor.... The gig is to make you feel like you can make money, so you keep watching for more awesome, money-making tips. That means they have to explain how you can do things that will make you money. And that means there have to be broad and obvious ways to make money. And more than that, it has to seem like the folks on the teevee know how to make that money. But they don't.
CXO Advisory Group tracked Jim Cramer's picks for awhile and concluded "Based on subsequent stock market performance and our judgments about his forecasts for overall stock market direction, Jim Cramer is right about 46% of the time with his stock market predictions, a little below average." Stunning performance. Meanwhile, anyone who has ever read Larry Kudlow wonders how he's able to manage a folding chair without assistance, much less other people's money. He's the sort of guy who monocausally attributes market movement to Obama's standing in the polls. Indeed, if markets are half as efficient as he believes, than his show exists in stark contradiction to the implications of efficient markets. But he has a finance show. Because like with political commentary, ratings come from entertainment, not insight and accuracy. And a broadcast that was all doom and destruction and frank admissions of ignorance wouldn't be very fun to watch.
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