John Stuart's thoughts on "24-hour financial news channels," on the "Late Show with David Letterman," got me thinking:

"The thing that upsets me the most, honesty, there are three 24-hour financial networks," Stewart complained. "All their slogans are like, 'We know what's going on on Wall Street.' But then you turn it on during the crisis, and they're like, 'We don't know what's going on!' It'd be like turning on The Weather Channel in a hurricane, and they're just doing this: 'Why am I wet? What's happening to me? And it's so windy! What's going on, I'm scared!' How do you not know?  (Watch)

Who are these cable financial networks; honest reporters with only the public good in mind, or unabashed propagandists working for giant corporations with vested financial and political agendas?  Hmmm...

The 24 hour cable news channels are in on it too Media Maters reports; MSNBC continues to use misleading charts suggesting Obama is responsible for Dow's decline:

At least twice during MSNBC Live on March 7, anchor Alex Witt aired a graphic labeled "Stock Market Slide," which started with "Election Day" and included a point marked "Inauguration Day":

During the 7 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live, Witt stated to CNBC senior contributor Ron Insana: "On Election Day, the Dow was at 9,625 and change; January 20 -- Inauguration Day -- it was at 7,949. And yesterday the Dow is at 6,622, a drop of nearly 3,000 points just since Election Day. I mean, any explanation as to why Wall Street has not taken to everything that President Obama is trying to do?"

And, when did you stop beating your wife?

Media Matters also reports, Contessa Brewer aired a cropped graphic of the Dow during the March 3 edition of MSNBC Live, labeled "Dow Since Election Day."  It appeared on the March 6 edition of Morning Joe, host the March 6 edition of Hardball, host Chris Matthews showed a "Dow Since Election Day" graphic while claiming the market doesn't "like what they hear coming from Obama," as well other media outlets, including Bloomberg, and FoxNews.

It's not just the misleading stories and opinion that has helped steer us to this financial downfall, look at the commercials that are cable's lifeblood; no down, variable interest predatory mortgages, credit cards, make it big in real estate infomercials, and all those prescription medicines that we have no idea what they do, and manufacturers gleefully caution could cause permanent damage or death, whichever comes first.

The bubble leading up to this economic disaster started forming in the 90's when America was wired and cable financial and news networks came into their own.  Now that the bubble's broke the cable clowns don't want to see the problem solved, they even seem resolved to making it worse.  Nothing like promoting partisan division and derision when people are drowning.  No wonder the White House promoted the Limbaugh story, to keep the cable puppets from throwing more gasoline on the fire.

Thankfully there are groups like Media Matters calling attention to the problem but more is needed.  These cable networks need to be called out, big time, for they and their advertisers could very well be the cause of the economic meltdown.  Just a thought.