“The only regulation that works is failure”? “I’ll buy you a big breakfast, just not your neighbor’s mortgage”? One measly foot stomp? Come on Ricky. Remember when these things had a hint of authenticity? When you threatened to throw synthetic CDOs into Lake Michigan? When we actually believed you might give yourself a hernia? It’s like you’re not even trying anymore. Short-Sleeves Shirt shouldn’t be laughing, he should be calling the cops. Read more »
CNBC
We’re always looking for news about the political and personal battles waged inside of CNBC’s “global headquarters.” But lately the internal rumor mill has been all too quiet. It’s like everyone took the summer off from hating, undermining and backstabbing!
Just a few days after Labor Day, however, it looks like the long knives are out and backs are getting pricked. “The top talents at CNBC are battling over a billboard,” Page Six reports. “A network insider tells us Maria Bartiromo, Suze Orman and Donny Deutsch ‘all want their pictures on CNBC’s billboard overlooking the West Side Highway, and there’s always a lot of fighting and lobbying behind the scenes over it. They’re like a bunch of prima donnas.’ A CNBC flack denied any rivalry and insisted all three have had their mugs featured on the board in the last year.”
So have Erin Burnett and Becky Quick just given up? Why aren’t they on the billboard? And what about those two who have somehow captured “The Call” this morning, Rebeca Jarvis and Trish Regan? What did they have to do to Margaret Brennan to keep her off the air?
Face Race [New York Post]
It seems that our obsession with Erin Burnett may not be accidental. According to her big New York Times profile, by none other than the highly influential Brian Stelter, Burnett’s rise to celebrity was carefully engineered by CNBC.
Erin nicely handles the question that is asked of any successful, beautiful woman: what role did her looks play in her success? This is especially relevant at CNBC, where many of their viewers are known to watch with the volume turned all the way down until important news breaks. “There is an element of TV that is visual. You can’t deny that,” she tells Stelter. “But you’re not going to be able to move to the next level without the passion, the contacts, the journalistic drive.”
And man does she have drive. Erin (notice how well programmed we are by CNBC that we feel comfortable calling her by her first name) started out at Goldman Sachs but immediately began gunning for television business news stardom. She wrote to Willow Bay, the co-anchor CNN’s “Moneyline” and landed herself the job of Bay’s assistant and then as a writer at the network. Later, she somehow turned a job writing a business plan for an internet media start-up at Citigroup into an on air job. (It seemed she pulled a Dick Cheney and chose herself for the role.) This caught Bloomberg TV’s attention, which got her noticed by CNBC.
One thing that the article doesn’t explore is Erin’s fascination with China, which she continued this morning on Squawk On The Street by announcing that she’s far more interested in seeing Mongol than Dark Knight. (By the way, this might be the official contrarian line of the week. Two hedge fund managers said exactly the same thing to us this weekend.)
Needing a Star, CNBC Made One [New York Times]
If you haven’t read all the way through the latest issue of Marie Claire yet, you’ll want to slip directly to page 139. That’s where CNBC anchor Becky Quick gives fashion advice to a twenty-seven year old Bank of America assistant bond trader Lucia Knight.
“Wall Street may be 95 percent men, but don’t dress like one,” Quick says. “But don’t dress like a girly-girl either.”
She also says she occasionally looked fat and garish in her early appearances on CNBC, and then immediately brags about being “petite.” More after the jump.
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Quién es Más Macho?
CNBC’s Joe Kernen Says Charlie Gasparino Grunts Too Much In The Gym
By John Carney
Squawk Box host Joe Kernen this morning compared CNBC on-air editor Charlie Gasparino to Stuart Shugarman, the Wall Street hedge fund manager who alleged he was assaulted during a spin class for grunting too loudly.
In an informal segment of the show referred to as “seats” (because the three hosts sit in directors chairs and talk about more light-hearted fare than the usual market chatter), Kernen said that he was glad that the accused Christopher Carter, a stockbroker, was acquitted by a jury yesterday. Kernen described people who grunt loudly in the gym as people who “you can’t stand.” Then he turned his fire on Gasparino.
“You know Gasparino grunts in the gym,” Kernen said. “He’s a grunter.”
Kernen quickly added that he’s unlikely to attempt to throw Gasparino around the gym the way Carter allegedly threw Sugarman.
“You going to go tell Charlie to stop?” Kernen asked co-hosts Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla. “Then I’d have the herniated disc.”
Charlie Gasparino could not be reached for comment. Probably because we didn’t want to call him at 6:30 in the morning.
It’s no secret that CNBC sweetie Erin Burnett like taking trips to “exotic locales.” This time around her trip is in India, where cricket is simply huge. So huge, in fact, that sporty Erin couldn’t resist getting suited up and taking a few whacks at the ball herself.
She’s also doing things like going to banks and the stock exchange. But for some reason, we find ourselves much more interested in the cricket segment than any of the “serious” stuff.
Cricket in India [CNBC]
Lehman Brothers led the pack of financial stocks downward this morning, falling to six-year low as investors speculated that the firm might be vulnerable to a run-on-the bank similar to the one that brought down Bear Stearns. This worry continues despite Lehman having announced a new 3-year credit facility of $2 billion dollars and the Federal Reserve opening up the discount window to brokerages houses, a move many regard as specifically aimed at providing liquidity to avoid the fears that fueled the collapse of Bear.
But the pressure on Lehman’s stock continues. Lehman is leveraged more heavily than its Wall Street peers and it is a major player in the mortgage market, the source of much of the pain for Bear Stearns. It recently completed a round of 10% across-the-board layoffs, a move intended to show capital markets that the bank is serious about improving efficiency and cutting costs.
Lehman has yet to report any truly bad news . Its write-offs on the last two quarters of 2007 added up to about $1.6 billion, far below the write-off numbers of some of its peers. But this has ironically fueled market fears—many wonder if Lehman has more exposure than it has let on. Lehman chief executive Dick Fuld has attempted to reassure investors and employees. But the Wall Street Journal’s headline—Lehman Says Liquidity Is Fine—only served to remind investors of similar assurances from Bear last week.
More after the jump.
It was a bit disconcerting to hear President George Bush discuss the resiliency of the economy while ten blocks away people were scrambling to figure out whether Bear Stearns is going to be dissolved. We half-wished Bush would actually switch the location of his speech to a Bear Stearns trading floor just so we could see what kind of reception he’d get there.
That didn’t happen. But tonight CNBC is bringing us the next best thing: the President was interviewed by former Bear Stearns managing director Larry Kudlow. It airs tonight at at 7 PM ET on CNBC’s “Kudlow & Company.” We’re hoping it will be like an episode of Law & Order: SVU, with Goldilocks as the “special victim.”
Speaking of cute girls, Erin Burnett, the CNBC Street Sweetie who interviewed Jon Corzine on Street Signs this afternoon, might have born and raised in a small town on the eastern shore of Maryland, but she attended the tony boarding school St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware. She graduated in 1994, when he high school yearbook famously predicted that in 20 years she would become a talkshow host.
Click here to download the pdf of The Griffin, her highschool year book.
Can’t get enough of the Eliot Spitzer saga? Tonight at 8 PM (and rebroadcast at 11 PM ET) CNBC is presenting a special titled “The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer: A CNBC Special,” anchored by Dylan Ratigan.
The one-hour special examines, among other topics, the effect Spitzer had on Wall Street. It will feature a huge gang from CNBC, including anchors and reporters Charlie Gasparino (Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, Scott Cohn, Melissa Lee, Hampton Pearson, among others.
Dylan Ratigan will anchor live from Wall Street. We told CNBC they weren’t allowed to have Melissa Francis, Erin Burnett, Becky Quick, Trish Regan or Maggie Brennan for the special. We’re planning on getting them drunk at our happy hour.*
*No CNBC women were harmed, or even spoken to, in the creation of this post.
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