Economic Smackdown

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=868551308

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Rick Santelli from CNBC gets into it with Steve Liesman and Jack Bouroudjian. Santelli's on fire!

In response to a question about what will happen if the bailout plan is shelved and the market allowed to work, Santelli said, "There's an even split on this trading floor. Some of the people think, you know, if you have a Sears Tower that's riddled with termites and your goal is to build a beautiful new shiny one on top of it, maybe that's doomed to fail anyway. The other group says, you know what, you can't tear the whole thing down -- the whole run on the bank mentality would be ugly. Many traders agree on one common denominator, Joe. They think it's going to be ugly no matter what you do and that the real question is -- sit down with your kids or sit down with, you know, other people's grandkids and say what do you want to do? What is it going to look like in 5 years depending on the plan? Maybe we just need to tighten our belts. I'm not making a judgment call either way, but I find it really kind of humorous that some of the best authors in the financial community that I've respected for years that they write pieces saying how much money we're going to make when nobody even knows what the pricing mechanism is going to be. Viewers, be careful out there of snake oil salesmen on every side trying to present this plan. We don't know enough details. One thing we do know -- the history of the government making money for us isn't a great one."

In response to Liesman saying that the entire banking system is on Fed life-support, Santelli says,"Because they should be ... they're insolvent for god's sake."

On the urgency of passing this bailout plan, Santelli says,"History is loaded with leaders that tell the masses that everything is so horrible you have to do something now. You know what ... The market is what the market is. Who's lying to who here?"

Other classic stuff in there too --- an analogy to McDonald's and he whistles at Bouroudjian to get his point across.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=868551308

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