Rick Santelli Has Coronavirus Solution: Deliberately Infect Everybody And Let Darwin Sort It Out

Outside of market circles, Rick Santelli is a nobody.

And, really, he’s a nobody in market circles too, but to market participants, he’s a “known” nobody, so to speak.

“Known” because for what feels like the last half-century, CNBC has allotted a few minutes each day for him to report live from Chicago, where he either i) acts mostly rational, muses about the incoming macro data and tells you how 10s are trading, or ii) rants and screams like a total lunatic about highly sensitive topics he has absolutely no business weighing in on.

Most of the time, you get what I’ll call “semi-rational Rick” accompanied by some obligatory (and obviously feigned) irritation and/or incredulity at something or other. It’s harmless.

But, sometimes, you get “Tea Party” Rick, a not-at-all-harmless variant, whose defining moment came during the depths of the financial crisis when he decided to conduct a straw poll on live television to determine who, in the pits, wanted to “subsidize the losers’ mortgages”.

That went down like a lead balloon with a lot of folks, and Rick very nearly made what would have likely been a career-ending mistake by agreeing to debate Jon Stewart shortly after that infamous rant. (Santelli backed out at the last minute – Stewart cleverly called it a “bail out.”)

Well, Rick was trending on social media (or at least on Twitter) Thursday evening and suffice to say that although Rick hardly ever trends, when he does it is never for anything good. Thursday was no exception.

In a rant that may well get him disciplined or even suspended from the network (assuming CNBC didn’t know what he was going to say), Santelli suggested that one solution to the COVID-19 epidemic might be to just deliberately infect everybody and let nature sort out who lives and dies.

“Alls I know is, think about how the world would be if you tried to quarantine everybody because of the generic-type flu”, he said. “Now I’m not saying this is the generic-type flu”.

“But maybe we’d be just better off if we gave it to everybody”, Santelli continued. “And then in a month, it would be over because the mortality rate of this probably isn’t going to be any different if we did it that way than the long-term picture, but the difference is we’re wreaking havoc on global and domestic economies”.

In fairness, Rick did presage those highly inflammatory remarks by admitting “I’m not a doctor”, but regardless, that is a disastrous soundbite, and it’s now gone semi-viral (sorry).

It’s probably not a stretch to suggest that at least someone among CNBC’s many corporate sponsors isn’t amused with Rick’s latest shenanigans, and I wouldn’t be totally surprised if the higher-ups at the network have already received a phone call or two.

So, I guess the question is, if Santelli did have to take a few unscheduled days off without pay, who out there is interested in “subsidizing this loser’s” living expenses?

I’m just kidding. Rick’s a multi-millionaire by almost every account you can find with a simple Google search.