Listened To Bloomberg Radio For First Time

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People on HPC sometimes mention Bloomberg Radio, so this morning while I was busy I listened to it for the first time. As a newcomer to it I was probably especially sensitive to its quirks.

1) First of all, many of the speakers sounded like walk-on characters in the Simpsons cartoons!

2) Nearly all the recorded adverts were either government public safety ads or charities. Interestingly, many of the charity ads emphasised what the charity could do for the giver as much as the beneficiary - e.g. you'll feel good about helping someone - evidence of a self-centred society?

3) Commercial advertising is done by the presenter weaving ads seamlessly into their babble. Like one sentence is about the downgrading of Ireland's credit rating, the next is a promo for Mercedes-Benz, then back to Ireland's credit rating.

4) One show I listened to was live from what was billed as a 'power breakfast' on Wall St.

5) One of the presenters is promoting a year's subscription to his financial shows on Bloomberg as a Christmas gift to people interested in finance.

6) As well as sticking to fahrenheit for temperatures in the weather, they use a bizarre way of describing small moves in the financial sector: e.g.: X share was up six tenths of a percent, Y was down by three thirty-seconds of a percent etc etc.

7) A book was being promoted about countries using oil as a political and economic weapon. The book is by an American author and the so-called 'oil outlaws' that are using oil as a weapon, according to him, are Putin, Ahmadinejad and Chavez.

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One further interesting point that one speaker was making is that he sees USA going back into strong economic recovery soon, but not the 'rest of the word'. He was American!