Banking/Finance

After the Fed made an "emergency" 75-basis-point rate cut this morning, CNBC's "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, who has gone from bull market cheerleader to bear market doom and gloomer in the last six months, said it was too little too late. "[T]his is obviously the kind of action I was most fearful of - which is that they would have to go panic and that they would get way behind the curve,"…

CNBC “Mad Money” host, resident ranter and stock-picker extraordinaire Jim Cramer can now add “media critic” to his list of duties. Over the past six months, Cramer has become a YouTube sensation for taking shots at Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, including his infamous “They know nothing” rant on CNBC’s August 3 “Street Signs.” Today Cramer used his “Stop Trading” segment on CNBC’s “…

Are you a little skeptical when an economist or a financial strategist appears in the MSM, warning for the worst? A look back at the Dec. 25, 2006, “Where to Invest” issue of BusinessWeek gave us a measuring stick to see how frequently cited “experts” shaped up in 2007 – including New York Times regular Ian Shepherdson, Moody’s Economy.com economist Mark Zandi and Standard & Poor’s Chief…

Since the stock and credit market turbulence began in July, NewsBusters has been informing readers that media continually predict recessions that never happen.On the sad flipside, bearishness in the press can become so pervasive that an economic downturn ends up being an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy.NewsBusters affiliate the Business and Media Institute made this very point in a late-…

You'd hardly expect the chief Washington correspondent of business channel CNBC to negatively stereotype economic conservatives. But appearing on today's Morning Joe, the urbane John Harwood did just that.View video here.JOE SCARBOROUGH: [Huckabee is] a different type of evangelical. It's not the evangelical in American politics that's traditionally been very conservative economically. Obviously…

Steve Fraser might look mild-mannered, but when it comes to economic doomsaying, he is the Rocky Marciano of recession, the Tiger Woods of turndown, the David Beckham of depression.Speaking of bending one, Fraser's LA Times column of today, "Symptoms of an Economic Depression," twists U.S. economic data into a harbinger of impending doom. Fraser begins by falsely claiming that "no one wants to…

The Democrats are better at understanding the impact of globalization on working people in America. The wages that have been arrested and halted in their growth, while, you know the boys in investment banking are making 10 times the average income of an American. I think the Democrats understand the consequences of it more than the Republicans and, frankly, another disagreement I've got with…

As the 2008 election approaches, the New York Times uses the image of a sinking red "RECE$$ION" to communicate a fear that is so far only a phantom menace. Peter Goodman's Sunday Week in Review cover story, "Trying to Guess What Happens Next," displayed plenty of pessimism about the U.S. economy after years of foreign-financed easy money. But the accompanying graphic communicated even more…

Widows and orphans, beware: the Republicans are coming!That was the upshot of Chris Matthews's observation today about two Republican front-runners.View video here.Financial Times US Managing Editor Chrystia Freeland has become a "Hardball" regular of late. CHRYSTIA FREELAND: The other thing that people worry about is if someone forecloses on their home, and that's the issue we haven't really…

*****Update at end of post includes detailed response to unhappy e-mail messages concerning this subject.As someone that has done a lot of economic writing and financial media analysis, I'm used to gloom and doom from journalists. However, Saturday's Associated Press article concerning the credit crunch and how it's impacting the mortgage market could be the worst example of economic and…