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ABC led with economic news as David Muir followed the rising price of crude through the refinery system and concluded that a gallon of gasoline would become 25c more expensive in just one week. With the Federal Reserve Board poised to cut interest rates, tomorrow, Muir noted that oil prices tend to rise as the dollar weakens: "There is a great concern that a cut in rates could possibly weaken it even more." NBC consulted Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's Mad Money, who insisted that interest rates must fall regardless: "We have got to get housing to stabilize--and the only organization that can do it all at once is the Federal Reserve--because housing has become such a key component of the slowdown in the economy."
Stanley O'Neal is "the most prominent casualty of the mortgage meltdown," declared Anthony Mason on CBS. He was the boss of the brokerage Merrill Lynch, fired because he presided over $8bn in losses from wrong-way wagers on the value of real estate loans. "CEOs are losing their jobs; borrowers are losing homes. They are all paying for placing exceedingly bad financial bets," mused Mason--except that O'Neal was not paying. Yesterday, ABC's Muir (subscription required) reported that he would leave his job with a $200m severance; today CBS' Mason estimated the package at $160m in stock options. "Some pay more than others."
Returning to the rising price of gasoline, a soundbite Muir used from analyst Art Hogan of the Wall Street firm Jefferies & Co sounded fishy: "What this 25c more per gallon means--that takes about $100m a day out of consumer spending." But surely the purchase of gasoline is a component of "consumer spending." The $100m extra spent on gasoline is, by definition, spent by the consumer. How can those purchases be not spent?
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