Stewart vs Cramer

[jmhc74]

Not sure if you guys have ever watched the Daily Show but from time to time I'll watch an episode...while I generally don't share his political views I find his show extemely entertaining and at times enlightning. But the following vid sets off the firestorm between CNBC and Stewart.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220252&title=cnbc-gives-financial-advice

As a result of that episode...Cramer from Mad Money (informative show but at time tooo zany for me) came on and that's where the fun happened. Sortof long, but if you want an abbreviated version just skip to 9:40 into the video and it pretty much sums up the whole thing, IMO. I'm not going to go into a long rant, but if you haven't watched the video and got some free time just kick your legs up and watch.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=220533

[MajinTony]

I watch the Daily Show every night and this had been brewing from the beginning of the week. Cramer was getting clowned all week and decided to come do it in person. Jon Stewart gave Jim Cramer a verbal piledriver.

/pwned

[jmhc74]

I watch the Daily Show every night and this had been brewing from the beginning of the week. Cramer was getting clowned all week and decided to come do it in person. Jon Stewart gave Jim Cramer a verbal piledriver.

/pwned

My impression of Cramer during that interview..."What a dick!!!"

But as I said before, Stewart is very entertaining - he does make his point known but whether I agree or disagree with what he sais I still find myself laughing.

[VcElder]

HA! at some points You can see the Pain in Cramer's eyes.

Stuart:"Roll 216"
Cramer "Whimper..."

I have to give Cramer some credit....he went on the show and cooked. He pretty much threw his hands up and said " I F*cked up"

I think that its admirable.

-Vic

[Zabka]

I have long believed that Cramer does a disservice to the individual investors out there. He makes short term trading calls that are not what a person who has another job and is not able to be in the flow of news should be doing. It's a recipe for disaster unless you have some edge. if you are getting your ideas from a popular TV show, you have no edge. I almost dislike that show as much as I hate anything that has to do with Donald Trump.

In my last job, I used to look for opportunities to short stocks that he was pimping that clearly had no fundamental basis. His small cap biotech stock calls were so clearly just hedge fund rumor mill stuff, it was just sad.

Stewart raised a number of good points. Especially being even handed and having context. Wall Street is not villainous as a monolithic platform. Some bad people definitely did some bad stuff. Other people did incredibly irresponsible stuff. Others, just got taken down due to the massive irresponsibility of the others.

And he is a a bit off in his views about CNBC. Not Cramer, but CNBC. CNBC, ever since the tech bubble burst (they were ridiculous then), has always jumped on whatever scandal/bandwagon they could sensationalize. So they haven't been pumping the market for anybody who was watching. They love to sit, all smarmy and with the benefit of hindsight, to point figures and pontificate on how things are. They are not big business/wall street shills. There was a good stretch there where they thought it was good tv to ambush investors/analysts/etc. It was irresponsible in the other direction. I think they can provide a service to the public in exposing things---but where are they going to get that info from? Investors who have that insight will pump them with that stuff--but 80% of that info will be false and intended to create a panic for short sellers to profit off. Companies will either say completely innocuous statements that provide no insight or lie (but in a way that isn't legally lieing--more like half-truths and misleading statements. And to be honest, most journalists are not equipped to do the type of digging that would reveal some of this. Most people in the business knew that the Street was overlevered. But capital was cheap, and if you didn't lever up, your returns would look worse than your competitors and you would lose business. Don't consider it steroids...think of it like working out and playing sports. if you don't train and workout hard, you will lose out regardless of your talent. It's totally legal--but overdoing it can result in problems (injuries, loss of focus on other things, etc.). Leverage isn't illegal...but it got irresponsible. and what made it worse was that the hedges and insurance that they thought they had turned out not to be there (see the CDS market problems due to AIG).

So anyway, Stewart kicked ass in this. I don't always agree with him either (although I love Stephen Colbert--he's a comic genius). But this was a fantastic job he did of exposing Cramer. His contrition rings hollow to me. And Stewart remained objective in pointing out that Cramer shouldn't be the face of evil of this economy, that Wall Street as a whole is not a bad thing, and that CNBC could do a better job about everything. But he doesn't realize that so much of what he is asking for requires not just the analytical ability that is beyond the average person/analyst, but also the information that just isn't publicly available--and only so much information should be out there before business problems arise and competitiveness suffers.