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CNN is pissing me off lately. I’ve gotten so I can’t watch it on my lunch hour anymore. It’s bad enough we have the Never Ending Saga of Human Misery and Suffering playing out 24 hours a day, but from 12noon to 1pm, CNN is Issue #1: The Economy.

Otherwise known as the End of the World As We Know It. The last time I watched this program was a few days ago, when I made the mistake of turning on the TV and seeing some talking head explaining something about FDIC insurance and at the bottom of the screen was “BANKING MELTDOWN.”

I shut the tv off. Please, CNN, stop fanning the flames!! The two hosts of the program, Ali Velshi and Gerri Willis damn near hypoventilate as they carry on about gas prices, oil prices, stocks, the housing market, food prices, The End of the Freakin’ World.  I’m waiting for them to start jumping up and down and scream like Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Mad Money. They’re that close to going that route, I’m not kidding.

So IndyMac Bank blew up last week and now we’re looking at 1929 all over again? No! Simmer down y’all!

First of all, the IndyMac thing was caused in part because the bank had some bad subprime mortgages and customers panicked and tried pulling their money out STAT. This contributed badly to an already shakey standing for the bank, as according to the website Bankrate.com, IndyMac had been rated pretty low on the scale for at least the last six months.

But man, they were offering some damn great CD rates! 4.25% for a year?! That was the highest in the land!

Obviously they were trying very hard to raise capital but in the end it wasn’t enough. However, just because IndyMac went down in flames this past week, does not, I repeat, DOES NOT mean the US Banking system is on the verge of a meltdown.

“Meltdown,” by the way, is the buzzword of the year. Right up there with the word “change” which I’m just as tired of.

Anyway, back to CNN. I think Ali and Gerri need to adjust their intro to the program. Something like this would be more suitable…

“Issue number one is your economy. Issue number one starts right now…”

*cue music*

“Hello everyone, I’m Gerri Willis and I’m gonna scare the crap out of you.”