Out of the Senate and Into the Squawk Box

Update: I just did Squawk Box and will post my impressions in a bit. In the meantime, you can check out some clips from the show here. I'd love to hear what you thought of the show. Please post your reactions in the comments section.

***

I spent Wednesday afternoon in DC, taking part in a Senate hearing on the future of journalism, organized by John Kerry, chairman of the subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet.

I was joined by Google's Marissa Mayer; James Moroney of the Dallas Morning News; Steve Coll, former managing editor of the Washington Post; Alberto Ibarguen of the Knight Foundation, and The Wire creator David Simon.

I have to admit, my favorite moment of the hearing came when Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, during her questioning of the panel, said she likes reading HuffPost on her BlackBerry and held it up.

You can check out my opening remarks and an exchange I had with Sen. Kerry here.

Now it's off to New York, where I'll be guest hosting CNBC's Squawk Box Thursday morning 7 am - 9 am EDT. Among those I'll be interviewing: Eliot Spitzer, Elizabeth Warren, GM CFO Ray Young, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, and economist Simon Johnson. I'd love to have your help deciding what to ask them. Please post your suggested questions in the comment section of this post.

Comments

[PunchPrincess]

Ariana, as a long time reader who was here on your launch date, I must mention that my visits are much less often because of technical difficulties your site is experiencing. You might not know it, and would be surprised perhaps, but it took two minutes for this page to load. I'll list some of the processes that I waited for -- tag.admeld.com, view.atdmt.com, pixel.auan­tserve.com­, google-ana­lytics.com­, cdn1.eyewonder.com, a.tribalfusion, and the absolutely worst offender -- digg.com.

I was a programmer long enough to learn that these problems are solveable if your tech team codes the interface properly. It boils down to coding your money making clients so they don't stop the page load process. I hope you can fix this problem as I really love HuffPo.

[batmanindy]

I am not a big fan of yours but like the website and visit it often. What I do not like about your appearance on Squak Box today is that by being there you legitimize the reporters as something they are not. They are not economists. They are not policy makers. They are just people who talk in front of a TV camera. CNBC is part of the problem -- no critical thinking just paid for commercial airtime for big business. By being there you tacitly approve and endorse it is as something it is not. Because of the aforementioned, I don't watch it but knowing you, suspect you represented yourself very well.

[Dredd]

Arianna,

I thought your use of the "smell test" as a contrast to the "stress test" had impact.

I was not too impressed with the Harvard Professor, who is now in congress.

Her thinking (on the bailout mechanism) was too much like a lawyer who is representing party A in contract negotiations. After giving the money from his client party A to party B, the lawyer asks party A, now what do we want the contract to say?

http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/bush-ii-eradicated-robber-barons.html

[foresight]

Ben Bernanke is doing a media blitz to convince the public that the Federal Reserve needs more power to regulate banks in order to make the case in the future for world order bank regulation. They already have been given too much power to self regulate a broken system theat was deviously concieved with a totally illegal autorization. It's time for the The citizens of the US to tell the Federal reserve we are no longer going to honor our obligations to them and that the United States treasury Will be issuing it's own Dollar Currency backed by precious metal. Say good bye to the federal reserve system Now is the time be done with their enslavement. Cash and Carry Credit is Slavery.

[luziannagirl]

Morning, Arianna.

Here's a question for the economy prof, from way down in the Gumbo Gallery, which, by the way, loses about a football field's worth of land to the Gulf of Mexico every hour:

"In light of leading scientists' assessment that this planet's finite resources simply cannot sustain the six billion + humans already living upon it, how much longer can we support a growth-based global economic model built upon the incorrect (and now largely discredited) assumption that there exists an infinite supply of resources?"

Thanks, and keep up the great work. You are a light in the dark, cher!

[timbudsul]

Question:How can we promote and encourage American- made products, (such as automobiles, etc.) and convince consumers that purchasing these products will in turn boost our economy and work force? I am tired of purchasing products made "off shore" and it's time we bring basic manufacturing back to this country.The only "products" we seem to be producing are bad hedge funds and phoney mortgages.

[TankerRat]

I remember Ross Perot suggesting in 1992 ,a "Social tariff" on such goods to force companies to pay "living wages" or bring the jobs back to the U.S. People (Clintonites and Republicans) called him a lunatic. So NOW what do you have? You asked for it -you got it. Reminds of a Toyota commercial.
People overseas are good at innovation. Americans make money by " shifting" money around. Too many MBA's and NOT enough engineers (which are being "off-shored as well)).

[cognitivereddawn]

The last time Elizabeth Warren spoke in front of a government committee, she stated that she could account for all but 33% of the first $235 billion of the TARP money. Ask her if the CEO's or the institutions took all or part of the 33% as a FEE for "doing the deal" (similar to the house taking its cut in a Las Vegas casino).
Then, instead of the U.S. government giving money or purchasing equities, preferreds, etc., "under the table", suggest to her that these transactions should be done THROUGH legitimate exchanges like the NYSE, etc. Yes, there will be commissions which can be negotiated, but all funds would be accounted for & I bet a lot LESS money would be needed to revitalize the investment side of our economy.

[Larry Lipp]

How often do the experts at wall street rely on and use the bond rating system? If they do not rely on it, why do they want amateur investors to rely on those ratings?

What ares of financial accounting do you think need to be more highly regulated in order to increase transparency and accuracy of financial statements? How would you change these areas?

[Ironquill]

Excellent performance. Great you told Kernan, who has a 70's stock broker's intelligence level, to stop interrupting guests just as they get to the punch line. Bad habit, his, and you nicely put him in his place. You are a breath of fresh air on CNBC, especially after a week of watching the usual suspects drool over the chance to make a killing on government sponsored asset purchase plans.

Simon Johnson's was the most effective guest appearance I have seen anywhere, and he has the most cutting edge argument against the apparent Summers' strategy of allowing the financial oligarchy simply to re-establish itself.

Simon's statement was, in effect--we in the U.S. have allowed to take root what is a common growth inhibiting arrangement typical of a developing third world nation. That is, a rent-seeking financial oligarchy is aligned with the government. The financial industry saps the nation's growth by siphoning off the profits.

Simon's analogy of the U.S. being bogged down in a restricted growth, "L" shaped recovery chiefly because we are acting like a third world developing country should be anathma even to a small thinker like Joe Kernan.

[PMyshkin]

The one question that no one seems to want to ask is, "Aren't the actions of the Fed and Treasury designed to reinflate the economy based on the same debt-driven consumerism that got us into this mess in the first place?" For some time, our economy has depended about 70% of its activity on consumer purchases - goods and/or services. With the off shoring of manufacturing, there is very little US economic activity specifically directed towards bringing money into the US and a huge driving force (consumerism) to send money overseas to countries lke China, in particular. With the demise of Chrysler, and probably, GM, tens of thousands of more manufacturing jobs will be lost. How then is concentrating the stimulus towards lending institutions going to replace these lost manufacturing jobs and create new ones? It seems that all it will do is reinforce the behaviors of the past by encouraging people to spend more than they can afford by making lending easier.

[ntmessage]

Arianna! You were awesome as usual and on CNBC no less. Serious, fun and entertaining on top of intellectually engaging.

Material changes during the bank stress test rebuttal period (if any) and of course, their validity revealed to the public is a good idea. This alone does invalidate neither the tests nor the objective of the tests. Lift the uncertainty since without some official version or some baseline for everyone to measure. Even if imperfect, it is still amazingly better than what we have had to go on. Nothing and no one to believe. Neither the banks, money managers nor the agenda laden academics and economists.

Spitzer is a prime example of someone who was taken down by powerful people and a reason that we must be smart and vigilant on regulation, especially in the non-regulated markets. Further, we must now know that based upon the mortgage cram down legislation loss that health care will not be a piece of cake either. The stakes are even higher than ever, since if we cannot say “at least we have our health” we cannot say we have any sense of a civilized society.

The IPO question was quite interesting. Perhaps those that have been religiously posting on Huff Po could get access at the initial offer price?

Yasou

[Lloydich]

Good to hear you're keeping so active, Arianna. Your priorities and mine are generally congruent, but we have so little time. Before Omama was elected last year, I considered my first job to be ending the War in Iraq, and my second was ending the Embargo of Cuba. Sort of a Big Job (entailing moving hundreds of thousands of American troops) and a little job (which could be accomplished with the stroke of a few pens).

Today, there hasn't been serious progress on either issue, but persons with radical politics have to constantly review their agendas to make contribution.

Presently, I'm still figuring out Huffington Post's software, in an effort to start posting fine art and photography and protest art information and articles, right here.

[HallStyle]

You need to ask spitzer if he is going to try and get his Job back as Governor. I mean come on all the guy did was go out and take care of a physical need. Obivously his Wife wasn't fullfilling. He should have lost his job becuase of that. I am tried of Political Men being chastised for being MEN!

Marriage is un realistic for men. I married but the desire to sleep with other women is always there. To think that men in their position are any better than me is a stretch. They going to continue being men until they die. That doesn't mean that they can't still have a career in politics. I don't care about Spitzers personal life on anyone elses for that matter.

http://www.hallstyle.blogspot.com

[ReMarker]

8:30 EST.
Arianna,

Your Squawk Box visit is another testiment to your understanding of how good business decisions are supportive of good government public policy (not political ideology).

I particularly like how the "Squawk Box" perception of the value of the "boom & bust" finance model is debunked by you and other guests.

Maybe remind the "Squawk Boxers" that Conservatives were floating the idea of using Social Security funds to buy stocks, pre this financial mess.

[PresidentRobertBooth]

Arianna, it's time you ran for Senate.


You know I'm right.

[TakeNoNeoConPrisoners]

Darling, Arianna, I would just like to ask you, no change that to, request from you that you continue to keep up the good journalism that is represented here on HuffPo. You and your bloggers provide superior insight and info on what's going on. I have since reduced my time reading the printed media and the network media "news" programs in lieu of your bloggers, Olbermann, Maddow, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. These all need a wider audience to counteract the continuing nonsense and lies coming from the rightwing. Again, thanks for the news...

[Manny29]

President Obama says "securitized" investments, that is investments composed of bundled loans from mortgages or cars, half of which come from non-banking financiers, is the credit market that must be returned to trustworthy functionality. I don't get it! If the financial crisis was a result of over leveraged investments, just like the Great Depression, how are investments which are based on mortgage loans or car loans not overleveraged by defenition? Why aren't "securitized" investments recognized as an investment scam that has to be eliminated?

[celtman]

The problem is not with the securitized fund as a vehicle, it is with the quality of the underlying loans on which the fund is based. The current debacle came about when the geniuses who ran these funds, and those who made loans that were then sold to the funds, figured out that if they wrote loans that were less than creditworthy they could charge higher rates and people, desperate to get a home or whatever in a rapidly escalating market, would agree to pay it even if they were not sure how. The higher rates then made the fund offerings attractive to the big investors who bought the fund shares. Apparently, nobody thought it necessary to look at the overall mix of these poor credit loans to see if there could be a future problem with so many poor quality loans out there all at once. People were earning high fees and bonuses for putting money on the street, (how hard is it to virtually give money away?) so personal greed was driving the bus that eventually ran off the cliff.

If future funds are built on solid loans, are well collateralized with proper underwriting, and decent credit, then the funds themselves should be as solid as a mutual fund or other vehicle. Without the funding sources that these funds provide it will not be possible for any significant real estate growth or future development which, in turn, supports and sustains solid economic growth.