Fox News throws raw meat to the uneducated right wing. But the corporate elites and more educated right wing need a different type of news - something that fits into their belief system. Even they understand the stupidity of Fox. So CNBC fills in the void.
This week, Rick Santelli of CNBC got more publicity than normal for his on-air rant against Obama’s housing foreclosure bill. Santelli is an admirer of Ayn Rand, the founder of the objectivist economic policy that essentially holds government is any form is bad. Free markets with no government oversight are the only true way to freedom and economic prosperity according to Rand, with governments only interested in wealth redistribution. Her most famous book, Atlas Shrugged, held that when men of talent refuse to support the non-talented or lazy, the economy would collapse.
But Santelli is not the most vocal or biggest ideologue on CNBC. That honor would have to go to Larry "Never Right" Kudlow who seems to be on air 16 hours a day. Kudlow is a parrot who seems to know only two phrases – "drill, drill drill" and "cut the corporate tax."Kudlow is nothing more than a corporate apologist. On his evening show, he routinely brings in conservative economists like Art Laffer and Don Luskin where they have a forum for promoting their supply side economics.
Now, understand what supply side economics is. Back in 1776 when Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations, he showed that in a competitive economy, free enterprise works to best promote the public interest. This is true, under very specific circumstances. It is NOT true when the market is dominated by monopolies and oligopolies (or a small number of large firms that dominate the market). Large corporations have been trying to use the whole philosophy of competition to justify continued tax breaks and "protection" from government oversight for decades.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/21/222014/610/391/700324