The Most Ridiculous Analogy
The results of Money Culture's Fox Business Channel contest
Earlier this week, in a piece wondering whether the launch of Fox Business Channel was an indicator of a market top, I questioned one of the professed rationales for the Fox biz venture—that CNBC, which dominates the field, isn't sufficiently pro-business or bullish on the markets. I invited readers to provide their own metaphors and analogies to describe the purported need for a new entrant in a market to provide balance to the dominant force—by going even further over the edge.
Many thanks to all those who responded. The top 11 are below. (Because several hit similar themes or overlapped, I have melded some of the comments into single items.)
Saying that the viewers need another business news channel because of CNBC's alleged anti-business, anti-American bias is a little like saying:
11. Ronald Reagan's face should be put on the dime because we don't have enough nostalgia for the Gipper.
10. We need to invade Iran because occupying two countries in the Middle East with insufficient manpower isn't enough to defeat the terrorists.
9. The Los Angeles Lakers need another shooting forward to counterbalance Kobe Bryant's unselfish play.
8. Wisconsin needs a new NFL team because the state isn't obsessed enough with the Green Bay Packers.
7. Coffee enthusiasts need a new chain of coffee shops that are a little easier to find than Starbucks.
6. The henhouse needs to be guarded by a pack of wolves because the old fox is too weak and mild-mannered.
5. Heroin addicts need a new drug habit that is more compelling.
4. America needs expanded distribution of the Observer because Slate isn't sufficiently liberal.
3. Britney Spears should have another baby because her talents as a mother are clearly underutilized with only two children.
2. New Delhi needs more monkeys because macaques aren't scary enough.
1. We need a new computer company, Pear, Inc., which will sell computers that run a proprietary operating system, along with a music player that uses a unique proprietary format, and a phone that works only with certain carriers, because Apple isn't sufficiently out of the mainstream.
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Daniel Gross is one of the most widely read financial and economic writers working today. He is a senior editor at Newsweek, where he writes the "Contrary Indicator" column. He writes the twice-weekly "Moneybox" column for Slate, which also appears on Newsweek.com.
Before joining Newsweek in the spring of 2007, Mr. Gross wrote the "Economic View" column in the New York Times, was a contributing writer to New York, and contributed regularly to magazines such as Fortune and Wired. From 1998-2007, Gross served as the editor of STERNBusiness, a semi-annual academic magazine on economics and management published by the New York University Stern School of Business.
A native of East Lansing, Michigan, Mr. Gross graduated from Cornell University in 1989, with degrees in government and history, and holds an A.M. in American history from Harvard University (1991). He worked as a reporter at The New Republic and Bloomberg News, and has contributed hundreds of features, news articles, book reviews and opinion pieces to over 60 magazines and newspapers. Areas of expertise include: economic and tax policy, the links between business and politics, the rise of the investor class, the culture of Wall Street, and business history.
He is the author of four books: "Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All Time" (Wiley, 1996), which was a New York Times Business bestseller and a finalist for the Financial Times "Lex" award, given to the best business history book of 1996. Translations have been published in Spanish, German, Czech, Polish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Turkish, and Japanese; "Bull Run: Wall Street, the Democrats, and the New Politics of Personal Finance" (PublicAffairs, 2000); "The Generations of Corning: The Life and Times of an American Company," co-authored with Davis Dyer, (Oxford University Press, 20010; and "Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy," (HarperCollins, May 2007).
Mr. Gross appears frequently in the media. A regular guest on CNBC, MSNBC, and National Public Radio, he has also appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Bloomberg Television, C-SPAN, BBC, and Reuters TV, and on more than 50 radio programs and talk shows.
Mr. Gross lives in Westport, Conn., with his wife and two children.
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