Pretending to Work While Watching TV

The Cookie Channel

​Financial TV is not news.
It’s ESPN for rich guys.

Same graphics.
Same urgency.
Nobody actually knows what’s going to happen.

You ever watch CNBC for ten minutes?

A stock has a green arrow.
Now it has a red arrow.

This must be important.

They’ll put dramatic music under it
like we just launched a missile.

Meanwhile, every financial advisor in America says:
“You’ve hired us to steer the ship. Long-term planning. Don’t even look at your statement until your grandchildren can drive.”

They say short-term moves don’t matter.
“Noise,” they call it.

Then they spend eight hours watching the noise on a giant flat screen in their office.

That’s like a nutritionist saying,
“Sugar is terrible,”
then watching the Cookie Channel all day.

Because CNBC is hypnotic.
All the colors. All the hype.
It’s a football game — and your favorite team plays every day.

There is no Long-Term Financial Planning Network.
It would be so boring it would make C-SPAN 2 look like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And let’s address the production decisions.
CNBC has good-looking women in tight clothes.

So for the sake of gender equality, I propose an immediate change:
The men have to wear outfits just as tight.

I want to see some of those paunchy middle-aged guys in spandex.

You might want to do some sit-ups, Joe.

They’d look like a ’70s rock band
that went on one too many reunion tours.

When CNBC isn’t throwing up flashing graphics designed to cause sensory overload, they interview CEOs.

Here’s the inside scoop from every CEO:
“My company is great.”

Just once I’d like to hear a CEO say:

“Well...I’m a nepo baby.
The board of directors is a bunch of drunks.
I have dyslexia and read the numbers backwards.
I recommend viewers sell this stock before something terrible happens.”

​
That…
I’d watch.

​              **************************

Important Announcement: Some of you asked for the paperback version of Press The Button when the audio comes out.

Since it’s already written — and I enjoy doing things the easy way — I’m doing it.

Because the book was written to be performed aloud, I’ll tweak it a bit so readers don’t feel like they need to applaud between paragraphs. And it will have several bonus chapters that are not in the spoken version.

Real life has also thrown me a couple of curveballs lately. Just enough to remind me I am not the main character in the universe.

The novel is still coming.

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