Rather than rejoice over the stock market rally, many people are pushing economic pessimism and that upset CNBC’s Rick Santelli.
The CNBC editor and contributor complained about the pessimism on Squawk Box Feb. 16.
“Much of the world always finds something to cheer about, always finds hope in every stock market. This particular rally, because of the president, everybody wants to put cold water on it and maybe some day they’ll all get their wish,” Santelli said.
Co-anchor Joe Kernen mentioned that he keeps hearing the argument that the good economic data were because the economy was “already recovering.”
Santelli replied with mockery over the media’s obsession with Russia saying “And they’re all busy wasting their time looking for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Boris Badenov, and Natasha.”
Many in the media have fixated on Russia. One columnist even compared Russia’s supposed hacking of the U.S. election to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. On Feb. 14, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman claimed “we have never taken seriously from the very beginning that Russia hacked our election. That was a 9/11-scale event ... That was a Pearl Harbor-scale event.”
Santelli expressed frustration that the Federal Reserve bank is being influenced by the economic pessimists and is reluctant to raise interest rates.
Calling out Fed hypocrisy, Santelli blamed it for creating a “faux-asset rally” and begging for government “fiscal help” from Congress, but “Now we have shovels full of fiscal help! and they are going ‘Oh boy, I don’t see anything different on the horizon.’”
Continuing his rant, Santelli said the Fed should seize the “opportunity” of rising equity values and a “better landscape for business” to “normalize” interest rates.
“This was like served on a silver platter and they walked away from the meal,” he declared.
When confronted with the idea that the investors may be biased about Trump, Santelli argued that “investors may have political bias, but their biggest bias is to their wallet."
Santelli is credited with helping start the Tea Party political movement after a heated, television diatribe condemning Obama’s proposed stimulus spending and government subsidies of sub-prime mortgage lending.
