Guy Adami

As the old cliché goes, you don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but according to Rick Santelli, that's exactly what it appears the Obama administration is doing terms of financial regulation and fiscal discipline.

On CNBC's Feb. 2 broadcast of "Fast Money," host Melissa Lee proposed that taxing the wealthy is not the path to "economic prosperity and fiscal stability." Santelli, the network's CME Group floor reporter, agreed.

"Well, you're right," Santelli said. "But I also think you're going to see when the Bush tax cuts expire, a lot of middle class write-offs and exemptions and various tax benefits will also fall by the wayside. Not the least of which to mention, I have so many friends that work for the financial industry. And they've learned from the government, even if you only make $25,000 to $125,000 a year, one firm says if you leave to go into another job or whatever, anything outside retirement, they're going to keep 10-to-20 percent of the stock they took from you following the government's directives."

He's beloved by the gossip culture of Manhattan and was recently embraced by the left for hurling insults at CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer. But as Cramer's CNBC "Fast Money" colleagues explained, if you listened to NYU professor Nouriel Roubini, you would have missed out on a lot of stock market upside.

Roubini, often called Dr. Doom and known for crazy parties, predicted back in 2005 the speculative housing bubble would be the eventual undoing of the economy - and he was correct. However, as Jeff Macke, founder and president of Macke Asset Management and panelist on "Fast Money" explained May 11, being two years early with that prediction wasn't something to hang your hat on.

"Let me give you a little hint on trading," Macke said. "If you're two years early on any idea, what you are mostly is dead. You're a professor, as opposed to a trader. And if we still have time to talk after the five-minute butt kissing we gave the guy, I'll tell you what - he hasn't made anyone a cent. Until he does, as far as I'm concerned, it's a nice opinion but it's not making me money."

One of the subplots in the soap opera known as CNBC took another turn on Monday as some of the pieces fell in place of who's doing what and why.

Last Friday, CNBC and former "Fast Money" host Dylan Ratigan parted ways officially. However, on CNBC's March 30 "Fast Money," show panelist Guy Adami, the managing director of Drakon Capital, announced Melissa Lee, a fill-in host over the past year for the popular network show, as the new caretaker of the show's "center seat," that plays the moderator role for the show.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, and nothing," Adami said. "Listen, clearly you've noticed some changes on the set, but as a show and as a network, we'd just like to wish Melissa Lee, the Emissary, all the best as she now takes the center seat on ‘Fast Money.'"