Thoughts on the Jim Cramer smackdown on The Daily Show?

I think Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer! It was perhaps the hardest thrashing Stewart has given since 2004 when he called Tucker Carlson and his co-host Paul Begala "partisan hacks" on CNN|CNN's "Crossfire". Stewart repeatedly said Cramer wasn't his target, but went on to air clip after clip of the CNBC TV commentator.

Stewart said both he and Cramer are snake-oil salesman, but that "The Daily Show" is labeled as such. He claimed CNBC shirked its journalistic duty by believing corporate lies, rather than being an investigative "powerful tool of illumination. " And he alleged CNBC was ultimately in bed with the businesses it covered.

For his part, Cramer disagreed with Stewart on a few points, but mostly acknowledged that he could have done a better job foreseeing the economic collapse, when he mentioned: "We all should have seen it more. " Just thinking about the amount of work and time that Jon Stewart and his staff must have spent going over months of cable feed from CNBC makes me dizzy. Maybe Barack Obama|President Obama should make Jon Stewart the new Press Secretary!

From the Blogosphere: http://newteevee.com/2009/03/12/jon-stewart-vs-jim-cramer-in-the-twitscape.

I enjoyed it immensely. I am very glad that most of the show was spent on the interview. I also love that Jon did not turn most of the interview into a joke.As to why they didn't call CNBC on this before, 'The Daily Show' is a comedy show.

The answer is exactly what Stewart said on Crossfire years ago, he doesn't do the reporting. It is the same problem that the media ran into with Bush & co. After 9/11.

CNBC bought the kool-aid and did not do the proper investigative reporting and instead took at face value all the crap that spewed forth from the CEO's, etc. Cramer himself said last night in regards to one of these guys: he knew him for years and the guy lied to him. Now, if they were so close, should he have even been interviewing him in the first place? Because of this everything said was taken at face value and nothing was looked at any further.

As I said, much of the same problem reporters had after 9/11.

Jon Stewart really hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC. I was looking for a serious confrontation, it did not disappoint. Asked at one point why there were shows on CNBC promising to teach people how to get rich without doing any work, Cramer said, "There's a market for it." "There's a market for cocaine and hookers.

So what? " Stewart asked. Stewart repeatedly chastised the "Mad Money" host and CNBC for putting entertainment above journalism.

He also accused the financial news network of wilfully ignoring corporate dishonesty. For his part, Cramer disagreed with Stewart on a few points, but mostly agreed that he could have done a better job foreseeing the economic collapse. Cramer called himself a "fan of the show" and said his network was "fair game" to Stewart's criticism.

It was cathartic to watch, but I thought Cramer was uncharacteristically contrite. I expected more argument or defensiveness from him, and was a liitle shocked to see him take Stewart's accusations so humbly. It made me a little suspicious that there might be something like a CNBC makeover in the works for which this appearance was a set piece.

Overall, I enjoyed it. CNBC - and networks like it - are less often reporters of fact than pump monkeys for some financial sector. As Stewart pointed out, this isn't a game.

Real people get hurt, especially when a high level of trust (and money) is invested in these experts. If these networks were reporting real business and financial news, there would have been more in-depth critique of people like Bernie Madoff. Kudos to Jon Stewart, once again.

Jon made a great point, that the major players like the hedge-fund managers manipulate the market to score even in a bear market, at the expense of the Suzy-Orman-inspired buy-and-hold crowd. But Kramer is right ... the 2006 interview was an expose of hedge-fund manipulations, and does not mean that Kramer is trying to dupe his audience now. Jim *has* been harping on the need for the Uptick Rule, which will cut down on short-sell poundings-down of stocks, which is a ton more helpful in the current mess than the go-down-with-the-ship paralysis of a Suzy Orman.

Bottom line: read the fine print at the end of all the shows. --> Essentially the verbiage states: use the info from the shows with a grain of salt, and don't sacrifice your own judgment or neglect to get professional advice based on your own particular circumstances.

The problem with this clip is that it ignores the fact that the concept of diversification was a religion in the financial market. Religions are based on faith. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Everyone in the financial system, including CEOs, reporters, regulators and politicians believed in the religion of diversification. The people at Bear Sterns did not deliberately seek to destroy their company. The hedge fund managers were not deliberately looking for those mortgages that were the least liquid.

The raters were not trying to hide the truth when they rated mortgage funds at AAA. The bankers believed that the economy would continue to prosper and that people who took out loans would continue to be able to pay their mortgages. The people who took out the no interest mortgages believed that their financial situation would continue to improve, the value of their property would rise, and they would be able to resell their house.

Everyone is to blame and no one is to blame. If this was so obvious, why didn't Jon Stewart make fun of this years ago? Simple.

He believed in the religion too. There is no one more fervent than a convert, unless it is someone who's religion has betrayed them.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.