Squawk Box

After the news portion of a "Warmer Weather Hurting Retail" segment on the impact of the mild winter on retail sales thus far appearing early this morning on CNBC, Joe Kernen and John Harwood got into it over the relevance and influence of so-called "global warming" (I guess Harwood didn't get the memo that it's "climate change" now). Picking up at the 2:10 mark of the video:

The U.S. unemployment rate in September was 9.1%, a terrible statistic and a symptom of a profoundly damaged economy. Anticipating Friday's jobs report, CNBC Squawk Box co-host and New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin wondered whether the bad economic news had already reached a point where it would be "almost impossible" for President Obama to be re-elected. "Remember when people used…

Jim Cramer, a Democrat and Wall Street insider, made a statement on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday morning that most definitely turned heads in the White House. Speaking about the disappointing data released by the Conference Board, Cramer said that traders hate President Obama "like Jimmy Carter was hated" because they believe he's "destroying this country" (video follows with transcript and…

Ahead of the Sept. 2 release of the August jobs report, surveys had indicated the economy had added anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 jobs that month. But those estimates turned out to be very wrong. Just minutes ahead of the release, CNBC’s Rick Santelli went out on a limb predicting that no jobs had been added in August. Santelli was right about that number. As CNBC reported just minutes…

Banking analyst Meredith Whitney made a big mistake on CNBC Wednesday calling Tea Party members "freaked out white men who are unemployed" when Rick Santelli was about to come on the program. Not surprisingly, Santelli after his pre-market interview with Steve Liesman went right after Whitney's foolish comments even making it personal (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNBC panelists and guests always make predictions in the minutes leading up to the Labor Department's release of the jobs report and June 3 was no exception. While economists Diane Swonk and Mark Zandi and CNBC's own Steve Liesman all made predictions of job gains between 100,000 and 150,000 - Rick Santelli threw his own lower prediction in just seconds before the announcement: 55,000. (…

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday got a much-needed economics lesson from CNBC's Joe Kernen. In the midst of a discussion about the economy and how it's going to impact the 2012 elections, the "Hardball" host bragged about having studied economics in grad school leading Kernen to marvelously ask, "You studied economics?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Perhaps using a preemptive strike to help combat the May jobs report to be released on Friday, MSNBC has already found an excuse for lost jobs, and an increased unemployment rate – storms, tornadoes and flooding.  According to a business report: “…homes or places of business have been destroyed in this year's wave of storms, tornadoes and flooding. That means thousands of workers in the South…

In a moment of respite from its typically liberal proclivities, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" tuned in to "Squawk Box" on May 12 to chat with the 11-year-old daughter of a CNBC anchor who co-authored a book about "defending our kids from the liberal assault on capitalism." "Although I am an environmentalist, in this argument I support the business side," wrote Blake Kernen, daughter of CNBC's Joe…

On Thursday morning's "Squawk Box," CNBC's on-air editor Rick Santelli sounded off against raising the debt ceiling, the Democrat-controlled congress' failure to pass a budget last year, and "spendthrift" politicians. The rant echoed his famous 2009 diatribe where he called for a Chicago "Tea Party." "It's a matter of principle. If we can't do the discretionary spending now, what chance do…

On MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" today, Steve Liesman robustly defended raising gasoline taxes as a way to address rising oil prices. The CNBC senior economics reporter minced no words to show his support for hiking the unpopular consumption tax in the midst of a sluggish economic recovery: "I want to offer that one of the real solutions here is a gas tax." After positing that the problem with…

Jobs are heading up and down at the same time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the morning of Feb. 4 that only 36,000 jobs were added in the month of January, but the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4 percent to 9.0 percent. The mainstream news media will likely latch on to the dropping unemployment rate, despite job gains that were less than one-fourth of the consensus estimate of…

A sharp drop in the unemployment rate from 9.8 percent to 9.4 percent "surprised" analysts on Jan. 7, but Mesirow Financial's chief economist Diane Swonk warned CNBC viewers that it was an "anomaly." The drop in unemployment rate confused some because in the same report the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported only 103,000 overall nonfarm payroll gains in December 2010. CNBC's "Squawk…

One day before what many say will be an historic election; CNBC appears to finally be embracing one of the most famous moments in the network’s history: A Feb. 19, 2009 “rant heard around the world” by CME Group floor reporter Rick Santelli, which is credited by many for igniting the Tea Party movement. Throughout the day on Nov. 1, CNBC aired a 30-second spot encouraging viewers to tune into…