CNBC this Morning

There were some excellent guests this morning on CNBC, especially Peter Cohan of hedge fund Ramius. He actually sounded like a clone to our thoughts here - the total absense of national leadership, idiotic fighting over "lipstick on pigs" while we go through national emergencies of the financial type, our massive entitlement programs as a major issue, demography is destiny and his bullishness on commodities long term despite "liquidations" going on now. Rarely do we get good guests like this who are not spewing "buy buy buy" and "recovery is imminent".

There is also a gentleman named Rich LeFrak who was solid

I can't embed the links but they videos are here (10 minutes), here (3 minutes), here (2 minutes), and here (4 minutes)

Also an excellent segment by a gentlemen named Martin Gruss here (8 minutes)

It is worth watching this 30 minutes worth of video tonight when you get home - more informative then what you usually get in 5 days worth of normal CNBC programming.

Now these guys are double the age of the average hot shot leveraged out the gills hedge fund manager, so maybe that is why they seem to have a handle on things or some perspective. Essentially for readers of the blog they repeat many of the things we've been saying here since last summer. As the evidence is coming in, more and more people seem to be coming to our long held views. That said, maybe "they" can push the stock market up today - why not, who needs Washington Mutual (WM) or Lehman (LEH) or in fact the next 200+ banks that will be going in the next year. Anyhow, S&P 1215 is the closing low (although S&P 1200 was the intraday low) so you can expect the invisible hand to be in there buying at 1215 to defend that level. (EDIT Noon: Shocker - the invisible hand wins again)

I am also curious why the "realists" are mostly on CNBC Europe - that's usually where they throw Jim Rogers and there is an interesting segment I am embedding below (this video I can embed) - Bailouts will Push US into Depression

Apparently American audiences cannot handle such information.

The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government, Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.

"We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe," Hennecke said on "Worldwide Exchange."

The estimated $300 billion cost of the Fannie/Freddie bailout will probably be considered as a loss that the government will have to take, therefore passing it on to taxpayers, he explained.

"We already have $3 trillion of debt, as far as the U.S. government is concerned. These debt figures across the U.S. economy are rising very sharply."

When the government can no longer pass the United States' "immense debt" on to taxpayers, it will turn to the holders of U.S. dollars, leading to the eventual downfall of the currency, Hennecke said.

"Definitely, it (the dollar) is not a safe place to be invested in, as real inflation is closer to 10 or 11 percent than the actual inflation numbers given by the U.S. government," Hennecke said on "Worldwide Exchange".

Investors should avoid exposure to debt and stay away from leveraging on any investment or asset, including property, Hennecke advised, adding that "banks have been too highly leveraged in the past, private households, everybody."

Hennecke's stock allocations are mainly Asian-based, especially in the Chinese market as the country's government has a large amount of cash and the macroeconomics are fundamentally strong.