It’s largely because he hired Brett O’Donnell a veteran debate coach who helped Bush in 2004 among many other credentials. I just mention that 2004 Bush run because one tactic stuck with me since then: he always said “my opponent” instead of calling any candidate by name. It threw all his opponents off, and also removed his emotion when being attacked so he could focus on the issue at hand.

Now if Romney’s run against Gingrich the other night is any indication, it appears he’s becoming a master debater as well. Get it?

Cheap debate humor, I know. And below is some more from Old School. But first, here’s the story on Romney’s new coach.

Romney Debate Coach Potential Game Changer: Bloomberg

Here’s an EU ratings downgrade edition of my Originations linkfest, along with the epic photoshopped image* my friend h1ghway sent to me minutes after S&P downgraded the U.S. August 5, 2011. Demand for U.S. debt has only increased since then, driven largely by EU fears: 10yr Note yields were 2.56% that day, and closed Friday at 1.85%.

-S&P’s EU Downgrade: List of Old/New Ratings For Each Country (BusinessInsider)

-Downgrade To Hurt EU Rescue Fund—stories & video (CNBC and WSJ)

-Post-Downgrade Options For EU Rescue Fund (Felix Salmon)

-Forget S&P Downgrade. Here’s This Week’s Main EU Problems (Bloomberg)

-Breaking EU News Page (FinancialTimes)
___
*This (altered) image is from the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy. The pimp who sets the movie’s nation-in-decline plot in motion is named Upgrayedd—pronounced ‘upgrade’.

If you said No, you’re lying to yourself.

Financial media is media first, and financial information second. So it must be entertaining to get ratings and pay the bills.

That’s why CNBC has people debating all day long, because everyone loves a fight.

It didn’t used to be that way. The shift away from pure reporting to the debate model rose slowly for years at CNBC but spiked as the crisis escalated in 2007.

I switched to Bloomberg TV as my background noise around that time. Much more subdued anchors and a more hard news tone. But they have that luxury since TV is gravy and the real money comes from their data services.

Still, even Bloomberg is now slowly shifting toward entertainment flair: cooler bumper music into and out of commercials, more multi-anchor debates, and more CNBC folks coming on board.

The latest is Trish Regan who joined this week. She was a CNBC fixture before defecting, and like Margaret Brennan before her, she’s starting off brash—more CNBC than Bloomberg.

In Brennan’s early Bloomberg weeks after she left CNBC in summer 2009, she was the same way: very strong opinions, more pushy with guests and fellow anchors.

Which you could argue is good journalism, but it’s just a form of in-your-face financial entertainment that CNBC pioneered.

Up to now, Bloomberg is far more journalistic in my view. The calmer demeanor of their anchors—including the young guns like Matt Miller and Julie Hyman—lets their sources and the issues shine, which is what journalism is all about.

Brennan has transformed and now embodies this traditional Bloomberg model. Great journalist first, star/entertainer second.

Now it will be interesting to see if Regan follows the same path of conforming to traditional Bloomberg tone. Feels less likely though because one of her top tasks in 2012 is election coverage. By its very nature, political coverage is about heated debates. It gets ratings too. Regan knows this.

Which means we may see the ever-composed Al Hunt slowly fade as Bloomberg’s politico and Regan rise up in his place, rewriting Bloomberg’s formula as she does. Journalists are ever-composed. Stars rise. So the thing to watch will be whether Regan can bring the two together.

All that said, now back to the question: should financial media be entertaining?

Yes it should be. But not at the cost of the journalism.

So where does this leave the consumer?

Financial media is a way to keep up on markets, but consumers will never develop a sound retirement plan from a trader’s 90-second spot sharing his latest picks, and they’ll never figure out whether it’s time to buy a home in their local area by watching several anchors chatter about national home price data with Robert Shiller.

So why am I saying all of this?

These financial media vs. entertainment vs. actual financial advice concepts have been rattling around in my head because of a comment Tadas Viskanta made last week on his Abnormal Returns blog.

He said that 2012 market outlooks flooding financial media right now are more about self-promotion for the investor than they are about actual investing. He made the point as an intro to a piece he ran by financial advisor Carl Richards entitled Investing Is Not Entertainment.

Go read it. It’s a great reminder that there’s a distinct line between entertainment and managing your finances.

Of course the piece (which is a book excerpt) is done by a financial advisor who’s become a fixture in financial media because he’s incredibly entertaining.

So where are those lines again between financial media, entertainment, and actual advice? Very blurry…

-3 Most Expensive Home Sales of the Year (SFChronicle Housing)

-Homebuilders look great … until you see this chart (Bespoke)

-2012 Rate Outlook, short and sweet (BankRate’s GregMcBride)

-A collection of Pragmatic Capitalism’s best 2011 writings (PragCap)

-Bank charge of the day: Biweekly mortgage payment edition (FelixSalmon)

-Biweekly mortgage payments: Ripoff or Smart (TheBasisPoint as follow up to link above)

-Area Realtor’s Pop Culture References Stop At 1988 (TheOnion)

-Photographer/blogger who’s shooting/posting pics of strangers 365 days straight (Blog Radstone)

Not because it’s good. Because it’s so, so bad.

From my quick digging around on rappin’ Dan Long, he looks to be a truly dedicated local lender in Ohio. He must know this video is cringeworthy yet he’s putting himself out there anyway. And for anyone who does so on a regular basis–whether serving retail clients, writing, marketing, etc.–you know how hard putting yourself out there can be.

Dan has balls. So I’m highlighting his video to give him some search engine love. Also I’m pasting the text he (or his team) put into YouTube below which brings some extra context.

This file is of one of our LOs / BMs in the Ohio market. He attends a regular BNI meeting in his town of New Philadelphia, Ohio, where they all have to give a 30-second advert at each get-together. Dan is a pillar of the community there, lending great weight and reputation to the title of Mortgage Banker. He is always in his office at 123 4th Street, dressed in white business shirt, tie, tie pin, suit trousers and polished shoes. He has lovely silver hair; an absolutely distinguished gentleman. But he is definitely an innovator and thinker and will always be at the front of new and different ways to get his message across. It is no wonder his branch is a success!

I saw their Thanksgiving weekend show here in SF, and their 10-person ensemble left the crowd jumping … an astonishing and infectious live band.

So of course I bought their new album that night, and the whole thing is perfect for dinner party, raging party, driving, or just hanging out. It’s called Mission Statement, named for the multi-genre template they’ve mastered, and for the San Francisco neighborhood from which they’re rising.

Here’s Faded Dreams from that album. Inspirational coolness for the ages…

Since being posted on YouTube June 11, it’s gotten 3,350,833 views. Granted, I alone count for 50 or more. But still, the video’s view count speaks for itself.

Here’s what I said in June: “Priceless video on pricey food culture. Legit music too.”

To this I’ll just add three quick reasons why it’s the best viral video of 2011:

(1) There’s no other pop culture bit that captures yuppie first world problems (and accompanying inner monologue) better, (2) Its genius lies in simultaneously ripping and supporting Whole Foods with dead-on knowledge of the food chain and its clientele, and (3) first-ever rap video with DJ scratching in the back of a Prius.

The video was done by Fog & Smog films, a creative crew from LA and the SF Bay Area. They’ve done two other videos since that are both good, plus an ad for Hyundai. Well deserved success, and I hope this crew has more big wins.

And now for their main attraction:

And cheers to you and your family…