Kind of a harsh question posed by the Attorney General of California, Jerry Brown, in the Huffington Post.
But here, read it for yourself. Here's the best stuff of a really strong piece:
But, in a commentary post today, CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera sneered at California's effort to recover $200 million in damages and penalties, using a made-up quote from Elliot Spitzer to call it "quaint."
This follows an interview Tuesday that was straight out of the Daily Show. CNBC invited me on to talk about the case, and then Caruso-Cabrera asked why I would come on the air to talk about it.
Her co-anchors seemed to have no problem with the rip-off ("as long as they quoted you a dollar and you paid the dollar, what do you care what they got it for") and questioned the integrity of the whistle-blowers ("that whistle-blower -- is that a private law firm that you guys have hired to do this for you?") Unbelievable . And for the record, the whistle-blowers are industry insiders who have yet to be named.
The tone and substance of the interview are symptomatic of the Eastern financial elite, who think that $200 million is small potatoes, and big business should be given the benefit of the doubt.
What Brown is saying here squares with something that TCG has observed in the last year--CNBC and much of the rest of the MSM have embraced the view that what's good for Wall Street is good for Main Street.
