During his inaugural appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning as a paid commentator, Howard Dean told the CNBC regulars that he believed they were misreading the public’s reaction to Wall Street excess. Dean said that rather than resenting the wealth of Wall Street as a matter of course, Americans simply believe that “you shouldn’t get rewarded…for doing a crappy job”:
DEAN: I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. I don’t think people resent Wall Street because they’re making millions of dollars. Everybody wants to be rich in this country. I think people resent Wall Street for making millions of dollars while the folks who are reading the newspaper are out of work. You shouldn’t get rewarded in a capitalist system for doing a crappy job. That’s what the issue is.
Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen said that the hiring of Dean was meant to “balance” their recent hiring of former Bush administration spokesperson Tony Fratto. Watch it:
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