A friend and I debated the merits yesterday of Alex Pareene’s recent article on Salon, in which Pareene praises the most recent $13 Billion fine against JP Morgan as justifiable punishment for greedy bankers and a morally-positive disincentive to the banking industry generally.
I totally disagree.
I happen to think, and I’ve written before, that the journalistic narrative demonizing bankers for the 2008 Crisis misleads us about the root causes of the financial crises. I will argue vigorously for a more complex understanding of what went wrong.
On the other hand, and despite my disagreement, Jon Stewart is better at what he does than anybody else is good at what they do (with the sole exception of Nate Silver). So I’m still totally entertained by his characterization of the massive JP Morgan fine, the Alex Pareene article, and the response of financial journalists.
The first Daily Show video clip is here, in which he features Pareene, and Maria Bartiromo and Jim Cramer:
The second Daily Show clip is here, in which he satirizes the financial media’s “shakedown, jihad, gun-to-the-head” characterization of the JP Morgan $13 Billion fine.
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