By Mikhail Saavedra
It seemed tense from the beginning, Jim Cramer’s appearance last March 12th on CTV/Comedy Network’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was unusual in the sense that its guest seemed so obviously scared of Stewart. In moments, I sensed it was going to be a bloodbath.
What was billed as a brawl was more like a rampage by Huns and we all know Cramer was the one destroyed. The normally loud and aggressive Mr. Cramer spent over a half hour, on one hand apologizing and then on the other promising to do better in the future. What was most incredibly damming, Stewart showed clips of Cramer in essence telling people how to manipulate the market which prompted Stewart to label said behavior “disingenuous at best and criminal at worst” .
Cramer collapsed in the face of the avalanche of facts that his opponent threw at him. Stewart also took some delight while making fun of the nearly arcane conservative/Wall Street econospeak prior to the interview. What was ultimately a sad and humiliating exchange for Mr. Cramer was also quite educational.
We are told repeatedly on CNBC and just about every other business network in the US and Canada that any type of oversight of the financial markets amounts to “Socialism”. For example “the powers that be” of finance have wasted not a moment condemning the rather mild measures that the Obama administration has put forth to try to stop the wholesale theft by the market/corporations ( Incidentally, Bernie Madoff admitted his guilt in a 65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme on the same day of the broadcast).
Ultimately, we should all congratulate Jon Stewart for asking the hard questions, a job left to a satirist like Stewart, but one truly forced upon him due to the inability of the corporate press to ask any of the truly hard questions. In that sense, Stewart has done a service to journalism.
For once we are in perfect agreement. I’ve followed the career of Cramer the assclown for a long time now. He’s an empty vessel and a bully. What’s more he’s hurt people badly. Those in the know have considered a Cramer recomendation a bearish indicator for several years, but warning people has never done any good … untill now none of his many failures seemed to impact his status as a trusted pundit.
Little wonder that Harper wants to cancel public finacing of elections. He pretty well bought his seat with the Extraordinary Financing Framework (EFF) Bank Bailout.