Asia Times – In olden days, explorers sailing the world’s oceans in search of new profit opportunities navigated the unknown by means of looking to the heavens and guiding by the stars. Today, investors still attempt to navigate the dark waters of turbulent economic times with guidance from the stars, namely the satellites in the heavens that carry the world’s three major international financial information broadcast networks, General Electric’s CNBC, Bloomberg’s Bloomberg TV and News Corp’s Fox Business Channel.
Fox Business is under a year old; Bloomberg TV is basically an adjunct of the company’s core data terminal business on every trader’s desk in the world; CNBC, on the air in one form or another for about two decades now, is insanely profitable; advertisers pay a lot more to reach its audience of millionaires with money to burn than they do to reach the people at home in the afternoon.