When you are facing the wilderness on your own, you have a totally different attitude to someone who works in government or who has a monthly cheque.

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In the 1990s Santelli felt that the financial industry was changing in a way "not beneficial to me and my family" and in 1999 accepted a full-time job with CNBC. He began his career in 1979 as a commodity trader and order filler at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in markets that included gold lumber CDs T-bills foreign currencies and livestock. While at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Santelli joined Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity.

He is also credited with being a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement via a statement he made on February 19 2009. He was formerly the vice president for an institutional trading and hedge fund account for futures-related products.