Cavuto panelist calls BS on Cavuto

I forgot to pass this along yesterday.  But if you missed it, it's not too late to savor. 

On Wednesday, Neil Cavuto's daily program on Fox News Channel, which is ostensibly about business news but seldom actually reports it, deigned to tackle the stock market's messy start to the new year.

Understand, this is something painful for Cavuto to do.   In his world, stocks always go up.

But when they're going down, and the subject is just impossible to blow off, a scapegoat must be found.  And the most reliable one is the Democratic Party.

Here's how he set up a panel discussion on Wednesday:

Alright. Ah, forget today's gains on Wall Street, and they were
impressive. So far this young year it has been an awful year on Wall
Street, the worst start of trading in market history in fact. Now, what
if I told you a large part of it really doesn't have to do with bad
mortgages or bad banks or bad news on oil, but maybe this wacky
election? Investors just don't know who's going to win and they're very
worried what these guys are saying to win.

Don't get me wrong.  Democrats (heck, Republicans too, but Cavuto won't tell you that) have no shortage of idiotic, destructive big-government policies that stifle innovation and entrepreneurship.  But in a market reeling from — in Cavuto's own words — bad mortgages, bad banks, and bad news on oil… how much is some stupid Democratic tax-and-spend-and-regulate scheme a year down the road going to make a difference?

Still, two of the panelists, Penn Financial Group's Matt McCall, and Lea Goldman from Forbes, were happy to oblige.  But Jonathan Hoenig from Capitalist Pig Asset Management wasn't playing along.

Hoenig:  I don't buy this theory that the market's doing poorly
because of the uncertainty over the election. I mean, this market's
worried about a lot more —

Cavuto: "Well, could you just for this segment, since we've devoted some time for it?

Hoenig:  Sure. Sure Neil. For you. Yes. Exactly.  No, honestly, come on. I mean, we're really still seeing the fallout
from the credit crunch here. I've got a list of 500 banks at
multi-month or multi-year lows. I think the election is one
thing that's on the market's mind, but to say that that's why we're off
to the worst start in 30, in 70 years is asinine. We've had plenty of
uncertain elections since 1932.

Cavuto: [laughs] "Alright. Now, Jonathan was to be on my Fox Business Network show tonight — that's been rescinded."

Ho ho, ha ha.

Bravo to Hoenig for keeping an eye on what matters.  And given the amount of time Fox Business has to fill, I'm sure he'll have plenty more appearances.  Even the "anti-American" Peter Schiff is getting ample face time both on Fox Business and on Fox News Channel's Saturday business bloc.  Who'da thunk it? 

The Daily Reckoning