« From CNBC Business Journalist to Critic of Bankers on MSNBC (NYT Profile OF Dylan Ratigan) »

Ratigan said flatly:

• "As long as there’s been banks and governments, banks and governments have been conspiring to take money from the people.”  What has changed now, he said, is that “we have the ability to engage it directly through fair elections and a free press."

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On most cable newscasts, the people who are writing new financial regulations are called congressmen. But on “The Dylan Ratigan Show” on MSNBC, some are called “banksters.”

That term, a twist on gangsters, tells viewers a lot about Mr. Ratigan, a financial news apostate who has transformed himself into an outspoken opponent of too-big-to-fail banks and the politicians whom he calls their servants. In the recent fight over financial reform, he lent a megaphone to people who wanted an end to “too big to fail,” and he called on viewers to lobby the Senators in his imaginary Bankster Party.

All this from a man who, until recently, hosted a stock-picking show on CNBC, the cable personification of Wall Street. Now Mr. Ratigan, who labels himself a taxpayer advocate, rails against the “vampire” banks who “have assumed control of our government.”

“It’s like being the guy who was running the casino, and then having an awakening and realizing that the casino is what’s killing the country,” Mr. Ratigan said in an interview last week.

On Friday, he concluded that the financial overhaul, which Democrats hope to send to President Obama by the end of the week, would not put a halt to what he calls theft by the banks. The bill is “nothing more than window dressing,” he said. On CNBC, meanwhile, there was almost an audible sigh of relief that the reforms were, as Maria Bartiromo put it, “not as strict as many people had feared.”

Mr. Ratigan said flatly, “As long as there’s been banks and governments, banks and governments have been conspiring to take money from the people.” What has changed now, he said, is that “we have the ability to engage it directly,” through fair elections and a free press. The first step in his playbook, then, is to end the denial about it through his show.

He made headlines online in December when he cut off an interview with a congresswoman after fighting with her over what he called the “private insurance monopoly” that stood to benefit from an overhaul of health care.

“You’re asking your own questions and answering them. You could be your own guest,” Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, said on the show (Mr. Ratigan later apologized). Most of the time he reins himself in, recognizing, he says, that anger distracts from productive conversations. 

• Continue reading at the NYT

Comments

[Lynn]

Kudos for DR, he goes where no MSM dares to go. I don't understand why it hasn't riled the population to revolt, but we must still be asleep.

Keep up the good work DR.

[DailyBail]

Agree completely lynn..dr has been a godsend against the corruption..he deserves an emmy for his work...there is no one else like him on cable in my view...he understands .these issues because of his background in finance...and he's not afraid of any politician...they all know that it will never be an easy interview on his show...i wish he would run for the senate...