All Tyler Mathisen All The Time On CNBC

To my great disappointment, CNBC resident curmudgeon and crank Tyler Mathisen appeared on the morning program today from 6-9AM.



Earlier this year I described Ol Ty's increasingly bizarre and irrational behavior in posts here and here. In the first post, I wrote,

"The topic that set off the old codger yesterday afternoon was a report on the rise in temporary hiring in the US. As various panel members debated the good or bad implications of such hiring, Mathisen began whining...and I mean whining....that he was so afraid companies would just never hire full-time workers anymore, but only temporary ones, leading to long term lower standards of living of Americans.

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera retorted that with all the government regulatory red tape involving hiring, compensating and firing workers, it's no surprise that many choose to hire temps for as long as possible. Mathisen shot back, with a grimace and angry tone, something like,

'Go ahead and blame the government for everything.....Companies will hire people when they need them, and government regulations won't matter.'"

As I sat watching and listening to Mathisen's annoying commentary this morning and, later, this afternoon, as well, I began to wonder how many network anchors who've been so obviously wrong and misguided on the major economic story of the past two years have been rewarded with more airtime, rather than being yanked off the air entirely.

What I'm saying is that Mathisen has misunderstood the fundamental motivations affecting US corporate hiring in the face of a government which has been introducing substantial uncertainty into the business and economic environments for the past two years.

It is very much the case that corporate executives are hesitant to hire when their liabilities for employee-related costs due to health care and taxes are far from certain.

Yet Mathisen growled self-assuredly that companies will just go ahead and hire people "when they need them."

Now it seems you can't watch CNBC without seeing this economic wrong-way Corrigan, or, should I say, Mathisen, at almost any time of the trading day.

God save us. Can't MSNBC take the guy?