Smackdown: Rick Santelli tells Thomas Friedman he’s idiotic

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• Friedman appeared to be stunned to be getting a line of tough questioning on an NBC network. Gregory acts like Friedman is God speaking from Heaven when he's on Meet The Press. Friedman has always come off as arrogant to me. I like Santelli. He seems out of place on CNBC.

• The only difference between SS and a Ponzi scam is that in a Ponzi scheme you are not FORCED to buy in.

  • Jukin, your statement suggests that you actually are buying in to SS. Buying in would mean that you had the money in your hand and gave it to someone to put in, when in actuality, the government confiscates your money and puts it in.

• This is a smackdown because Rick called Tom idiotic because Tom called his question idiotic? I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?

  Or is it a smackdown because Rick had to back off his "ponzi scheme" language, and instead use "chain letter" or "pyramid scheme", and continually refine his questioning ad nauseum in order to get Tom to say "yes" to something?

  Just sounds like infantile debate on both sides to me

  • Rarely would I use Wikipedia as a source, but in this case they do get the definition right:

    //A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors.//

    How is it infantile for Santelli to be right?

    Granted, it may not have been designed to be a ponzi, but over the years this is what it has become. Thomas Friedman is an idiot that prides himself on having such a swelled head, because he is a big shot economist with a column in the NYT. But he evidently doesn't have enough brains to recognize a ponzi scheme.

    Santelli was just dishing back as good as he got from that jackass.

    • Well, Santelli didn't stick to his Ponzi characterization for more then, what 12 seconds? That must be less time then you devoted to research. Your smackdown already looms large over his. At least Rick Perry sticks to it.

      The point you grant, that Social Security may not have been designed to be a ponzi, is precisely one that Friedman would agree with. Does he get a pass on idiotic charges there?

      Santelli can literally concede its not a Ponzi scheme, and begin using other terms, but Friedman must still "recognize" it?

      Ponzis are criminal and promise *short-term* gain at little risk. They are not designed to last for generations. Of course Social Security needs reformulation, and is on track to unsustainability, but its something else entirely.

      • My comment wasn't a smackdown. I merely expressed an opinion that was different than yours.

  • Par

    Watching the electric joo is hazardous to your reasoning ability.

    • wtf is electric joo? The video posted here?

• This runs second place only to my morning devotions!