CNBC Guest Idiots & Phone whores

I was just watching CNBC where they were discussing what the conversation would be a cocktail parties this evening.  One of the commentators asked a Guest Idiot "if you're at a cocktail party this evening and your 401K goes up $10,000 are you really going to be talking about volume?"  And of course the Guest Idiot said, "most certainly."  How out of touch with reality is this guy?  Doesn't he know 99% of all Americans are not going to cocktail parties this evening?  He's making a generalization that most people are like him, and I sure he will be discussing volume.  By far, the vast majority only pay attention to their 401k's when they get their quarterly statements, unless the market drops, then they may go online to see how much they've lost.  He needs to understand the audience of CNBC is miniscule which, in an odd sort of way, may give his idiocy some minor credibility, but not much.  What he really needs to be is a little less presumptive in his comments and qualify them with statements such as "of those 1% of Americans going to cocktail parties this evening, a large proportion will be talking about the volume of the 401k's."  Of course, that will never happen.

On to the phone whores.  Prior to turning on CNBC I went to my local supermarket.  Walking towards the dairy section I saw a well dressed young woman talking on her cell phone.  Normally, this is not unusual, this afternoon it was.  Her conversation was very personal, I could tell because she was staring into the corner of a meat cooler, her back turned towards her shopping.  This was bad because trying to stand up on the seat of that grocery cart was a two year old girl.  What kind of mother turns her back on her children?  I say children because 8 feet away her son, about 5 years old, was bouncing a large red ball he'd pulled from a toy bin.  Passing her I said, "you need to keep you eye on her."  Her response was to smile at me as though I was some fool.  I was going to make a smart ass comment something like, "don't you think you should be a mother first and a phone whore second?"  I didn't because I knew that would make her angry and she'd most likely take that anger out on the kids.  Unfortunately she is a phone whore because she was more concerned with the person on the other end of the phone then she was her own children.  We've all seen people like this, who fail to comprehend that their phone is a tool, not an added limb.  They rely on peripheral vision to get them around safely because their eyes have been hypnotized by the phone in their hand.

The Bozo on CNBC

That's what I heard last PM on CNBC.  Some unremarkable man said the number of pet owners in the United States was down 20%.  I stunned! My first thought went sort of like this "it's the economy, stupid."  I know Vet costs can be expensive, I take my full sized Boxer for a yearly check-up and, if I let them give her all of the shots they want to, my bill runs about $190.  Of course my Vet likes to practice elective vaccination, they want you to chose to vaccinate for every thing they say.  I say no to things like the one they feel she should have just in case she gets exposed Kennel Cough.  I don't plan to ever put her in a kennel.

Gertie resting on a Home Depot drop cloth, at 9.99 cheap and washable

Anyway, I started checking to see if this unremarkable man was in the least be correct.  To my surprise he was remarkably wrong.  I don't know why this Bozo thought he could pull numbers out of his ass like that, doesn't he know people 'fact check?'  The number of pet owners in the United States is growing, and when queried about whether the economy effected their decision to get a dog or cat, their answer was 'no."  Thanks to my bit of timely investigation I also know that dog owners outnumber cat owners by about 10 million and that about 28% of dog owners have two.  I own a Boxer and a 19 year old cat named Max.  I did not see a statistic on the number of Americans who own one of each.  What else did I find out?  The average Vet cost per year for a dog as $212 so I'm getting away kind of cheap.  A side note on my dog and cat:  I told the Boxer that when the 19 year old cat dies we'll get another puppy.  As a result, a day doesn't pass without her whispering to the cat "die, cat, die."