Over the weekend, The Weakonomist was as busy as Fox News Team Politics at the GOP Convention.  Only I was doing something productive and I don’t have my lips attached to the rear-end of the party.  See I hired a polling company that had some spare time in between asking us every other day if we will vote for Obama or McCain in the upcoming season of American Idol, I mean president.  Whatever.  So I asked them to do a poll for me.

Every day you can flip on the news, especially CNBC, and there is another pundit talking about the economy.  He’s got a tie and the screen below says something like “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt III of Jingleheimer Schmidt Capital Management” or some other tool from a company you’ve never heard of.  But because he has a tie and receding hairline we think he knows something about the economy we don’t.  Sure he has a statistic or two, but if he truly knew squat about the economy, he would have long ago made his millions and wouldn’t need to pimp his tiny company on TV.  I’m sure John Jacob (”JJ Trey” to his homies on Wall Street) has a great little firm, but he is not an economic expert.  Whatever knowledge he may have to help his clients won’t be shared to the television populous.  He went on CNBC to plug his company and get more clients.

Occasionally these business shows get a truly gifted person on the show.  Someone who knows a thing or two.  Maybe its someone from the Fed or the Treasury Department.  Unable to hide their gittiness, the hosts spend the first half of the show kissing up and the second half asking generic low-ball questions.  They won’t dare ask a difficult question because then that guest won’t ever come back on their show.

All this time the drumbling fools CNBC calls viewers listen to the guests like an incinerated shrubbery handing down the Word of God.  In my best New England accent, “Cahm ahn”.  For 20 years now, CNBC has provided a bunch of hot air and inspired millions of bored Americans to throw their money away by day-trading.  Since Americans are dumb enough to think they can beat the market, their they’re dumb enough to believe these bags of air know something profound that will give them the edge.

The scariest thing is when the big boys come out to talk.  Like Pelosi might crawl out of her cave and make some generic statement about the economy.  Or CNBC might broadcast a Senate Hearing with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke trying to dumb down economic words with more than two syllables to whatever oversight committee kidnapped him this week.  It was with that in mind that I hired the polling company to conduct a thorough investigation of the popular public figures.  I wanted to know what the normal citizens think of these “experts”.

The polling company asked the participants, “If this person said they were optimistic about the economy, would you in turn feel optimistic too?”  If you’re reading this from the front page or via RSS, you’ll have to jump to the full post to see the results.  Perhaps the most surprising was that you citizens respect the opinion of Dave Ramsey more than mine.  I’m almost offended.  Check out the chart to see the results of my scientific study.

Note: Click the picture for a larger version

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