Jon, you ignorant slut

Well we finally got Cramer v. Stewart and oh how the cypermob loved it. To be fair, I enjoyed it as well. There is something about Stewart when he forgets to tell jokes and loses himself in an issue. If nothing else his heart is in the right place. But sometimes, that isn't enough in the grander scheme of things.

This has become the classic case of soothing very real concerns with a very unreal narrative that just feels good.

CNBC doesn't know jack. Stewart is right to point that out, but pretending that they did know and stayed mum just shows how far out of his depth he is on this topic. If CNBC knew which way the markets went they wouldn't be making small time cable bucks, they'd be running a successful hedge fund.

No one gives away good financial advice for free. No one. Not ever. The people who do “know” which way the markets are going are at best just getting house odds in a game of chance. And even that doesn’t capture it, because there is NO way to tell who‘s lucky and who‘s smart with 100% certainty. You can reasonably say that Buffet, given his track record is better than 50/50 to actually have an edge, but you can never be 100% sure. He could be like the secretary that wins the official pool by looking at the mascots.

Now, no one is going to mistake the talking heads at CNBC for Warren Buffet. The best CNBC can do is report the events that matter to markets. Assessing whether or not a bank has on an overly risky position or that the leverage on it is inappropriate would be like asking why CNN didn't expose 9/11 before it happened. It’s beyond their capabilities, scope and frankly acumen.

This "two markets" wild grasp is the very essence of "I don't understand what's going on, but I sure hope there is a simple scapegoat so I'll feel better." The large sum, derivative loaded, so called "back room" deals are largely responsible for the rapid advancement in quality of life around the globe in the last 30 years or so. Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Southeast Asia, China, Brasil, India, Spain, Ireland, etc. have all been the beneficiaries of finance serving its purpose, to efficiently recycle money earned into opportunities for real growth.

There is a limit to how fast we as humans can advance our quality of life. There are limiting factors such as the speed with which we make new scientific discoveries, and the rate at which we are able to broadly absorb the benefits of those discoveries. But equally as important is the efficiency with which we recycle money in our society, to fund productive growth, to give people an opportunity to better themselves, to refine our division of labour.

Stewart is dangerously wrong to create an artificial divide between greedy, d-bag high financiers/fund managers/investment bankers and the very real connection markets and finance have with lives all around the world. The same pension fund that he sees as being squarely in the people's market was the one that went to banks begging for something AAA with a better return than Treasuries because rates were so low, AND because they are being crushed under the pressure to fund a retired workforce that is growing with contributions of a current workforce that is shrinking. That’s a far cry from the two market nonsense and hardly greed or evil at work.

Malcom Gladwell does a talk on plane crashes tied to his latest book where he mentions that a crash is almost never related to one person making a horrible mistake or a wrench in the engine, etc. It is almost in every case a series of minor mistakes that on their own wouldn't normally be much of a problem. It’s a chilling fact. People want there to be one simple gross error so that they can take comfort in the notion that this can easily be prevented; that they aren't really in the hands of fate.

Well, there isn't one grave, evil error in this mess either. There wasn't one person who could have prevented it. Unless we are truly willing to ditch the horse that got us here, these systemic failures are always a risk. The laundry list of things that can be done to reduce that risk stand a much better chance of getting addressed if we don't let ourselves settle for the comforting narrative.