Cramer Grilled on Jon Stewart 117 comments
March 13, 2009
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Last night on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart took on Jim Cramer in a way we can't recall anyone ever doing - it's a must-see, here in three parts (he really drills him in part 3):
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This article has 117 comments:
There were some rational people during the bubble years who foresaw quite clearly what was to come and what was transpiring. I used to subscribed to Bill Fleckenstein's "Daily Rap" a couple years ago and he had contacts like "The Lord of the Dark Matter" who described the deterioration in the SIVs and CDOs and whatnot back in 2006.
Unfortunately Bill was given about 1 minute every other week to chime in on CNBC. In all fairness, short sellers don't want much attention, so it's not like Bill is likely clambering to be on TV.
But I like Stewart's characterization of CNBC as an infomercial for the financial services industry. Bingo!
As for me, Cramer is Cramer. As an rookie investor, I've learned a lot about individual companies and stocks and sectors from him. I just ignore his buy and sell recommendations and his market calls.
I use my own common sense.
Im "main-street" and Im working to pay for "losers" like you.
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers".
There were & are many Financial Gurus who new this market was going to de-leverage & unwind to these levels. The information was in books, the web, etc., you just had to look for it (homework or due diligence for investors.) As stated in a previous post, Cramer is a good place to get into the market and learn some basics, but to lay all of your eggs in his basket is not smart. Do your own due diligence; it's your money, educate yourself.
Stewart's shots at Cramer are the equivalent of Santelli blaming only the Poor homeowners for this mess.
If you think with the new president its going to get better, then history says you are sadly wrong. When will you ideologues get it, power corrupts, without a media watchdog power corrupts absolutely. The new president has no watchdog and will be as or more corrupt than his predecessor.
One of the most basic things one needs to say/hear in talking about any investment is the target price x months out. Cramer never includes this piece of information. If he did, it would indicate the true extent of his genius or his lack of insight and the extent of the risks associated with listening to anything this fellow has to say. In addition it would provide the basis for determining what could (not) have been made from his picks.
If I could have only one piece of information about a stock, it would be the price at which to SELL, not buy. Anyone who does not understand what I have just said should reread and think about the this concept very carefully.
So, we know the current price. If we have an indication of what the expected price is at some point in time, and what the sell price should be, then we can calculate a critically important number, expected return. From that, we can then look at risk factors.
To have been a successful trader and investor, which Cramer claims, but has yet to be proven or substantiated with hard facts, Cramer must have some indication in his mind about target prices and absolute sell prices.
Not to disclose these data truly begs the question about what Cramer, or anyone else for that matter, knows (does not know).
My next point is that there is no way on god's green earth that a person can legitimately clam, as Cramer has, that he understands what is going on in 1,800 or so stocks. No one I know in the business would ever make such a claim. Think of how fast one would have to read just to scan information about 1,800 companies. And, then to a quick time and motion analysis on this task. Say you spent 10 seconds on each name, that would be 18,000 seconds, divided by 360 seconds in an hour, would equal 55 hours. Cut the time per name in half, and you are still talking 22.5 hours. Add to this the need to stay current on the new feed about what is going on in the world, the economy, and with legislation, etc.
And they we have the time period. Do you do this scanning daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever. The market, of course, moves daily and constantly during the day,
Considering the number of hours Cramer spends on air or ramping up and down from on air plus commuting, interacting with family and friends, and sleeping, there is no f***g way he can be on top of this amount of information. He is doing a MAJOR disservice to his audience in claiming he is. If he truly thinks he is, then this man's thinking is sophistry and delusional hubris.
Finally, keep in mind that highly experienced analysts focus on industries and a select group of companies. Even the most energetic hedge fund managers i know would never claim to approach covering stocks and the market the way Cramer does. They ALWAYS have specific numbers in mind when they trade and invest.
No, my friends, Cramer is an entertainer. That is all he is.
So, Jon Stewart has pegged it spot on with this guy.
www.marketoracle.co.uk...
www.marketoracle.co.uk...
He may as well have been asking "So you really really are the tooth fairy?" This whole thing looked like a pretend inquisition, not a real one. I switched over to the UCONN v. Syracuse game.
tips ,buys and sells . He will also be the new spokes preson for the nightly market wrap up and get ready for tomorrow trades.
I tell you watching many of these shows you get just fill.
One must always remember all these tv people are selling something and that includes Stewart.
I ask all of you this question that watch these programs. Do you invest your money in anything they say to ?
I put a Comedian investment advisor in the same category as the obvious liberal investment advisors on these shows . Let the liberals invest with them !!!!
I will do my own research and homework as I am certain those of reading this at SA do too.
Now what beer will I drink tonight ????
Cheers, DuffBeer
jim cramer is fun to hear, but he is certainly not a good trader but a sales man. and cnbc carries the same truth in financial markets (just to mention mrs bartiromo)as in politics the phrase "weapons of mass destruction".
On Mar 13 08:38 AM nobull wrote:
> Im no fan of Cramer but I dont give a doo-doo about John Stewart
> either - so why was this useless article sent to my inbox?
Basically, in speaking to these videos; It's completely ridiculous for these two "TV personalities" (which, forgive me Cramer fans, is all they are) to try and blame the banks / the financial media / Wall Street etc. when their remedy is to let the inefficient government continue to manipulate the markets.
BTW, if you don't know what I mean here by douchiness, then you are definately douchy.
I just do not follow him and do the tricks myself.
To be fair, I actually heard more bearish comments from Cramer than almost any other hosts on CNBC. So to saw him humiliated on TV and took blame for the entire CNBC team, I actually felt a bit sorry for him.
But I did like what Jon Stewart said about having two games going on, one is for public, about keep investing into 401K and pension for the long term, the other is for the industry, all about quick trading and short term profits.
This has been my suspicion all along. Remember what was the promise to the workers thirty years ago ... be loyal to the company, work hard, and we will take care of you with pension. Now they changed the rules, and kicking people off the pension plan (if it still exists) after thirty years of service.
So what's the story for the working bees today? Save regularly over thirty years, put the savings into 401K and IRA (because income tax rate may be lower), diversify (between bonds and stocks only), and you will be fine when you retire ...
What if it is all a hoax? What is preventing them (the government and business) from changing the rules after thirty years?
And judging from the recent events, I would say they definitely will change the rules to screw up the savers again.
So make sure you really spread your savings, into other countries, into other asset classes beyond stocks and bonds.
To the extent that speculation (in excess) harms a financial system, Cramer is guilty for promoting it. Many of the bubbles we have seen recently would have been much smaller if investors had the benefit of someone to help them take the long perspective.
On Mar 13 08:40 AM NHFDSQD2 wrote:
> Typical liberal, blame one guy or network for individual people losing
> money. Maybe cramers call was late, but he did tell everyone to
> go mostly to cash somewhere around 9000. The blame lies all around,
> and if these individual investors are too lazy to do their homework,
> hopefully this will be lesson learned.
> There were & are many Financial Gurus who new this market was
> going to de-leverage & unwind to these levels. The information
> was in books, the web, etc., you just had to look for it (homework
> or due diligence for investors.) As stated in a previous post, Cramer
> is a good place to get into the market and learn some basics, but
> to lay all of your eggs in his basket is not smart. Do your own
> due diligence; it's your money, educate yourself.
> Stewart's shots at Cramer are the equivalent of Santelli blaming
> only the Poor homeowners for this mess.
I think this just points out a portion of the larger picture about the world of finance, the stock market, investment banks, the economy, and the people who capitalize on the "back room" manipulations that go on for various reasons.
It's unfortunate to think that some opportunistic organizations or individuals might use this kind of thing to get on the "inside" and increase their wealth at the current or future expense of others. Because of what the experts have demonstrated in the area of personal integrity ( or lack thereof ), I don't put much faith in the system to provide reliable long term gains in things like personal pension funds, 401K, or IRAs dependent on others and their shenanigans. It seems the problem we have is a deep rooted systemic financial failure ( if not engineered Ponzi scheme ), that negates any hope for what government and other institutions are trying to sell the public as viable plans for a more secure individual financial future.
I'm not crying conspiracy, but rather a situation where those with pertinent knowledge are taking advantage and raiding the piggy bank when they see fit, at the expense of the trusting public.
That was a great show. I give Cramer credit for showing up and taking numerous shots to the head without trying to strike back.
Cramer has a basic problem in that he is entertaining people with a show that goes on 5 days a week. It wouldn't be much of a show if he came on and said, "look people, diversify into these 5 or 10 etf's, keep contributing no matter what, and then, don't worry about or watch it. It will go up, it will go down, but it should go up over a 5 to 10 year timeframe. Thank you. End of show."
He has to stoke it! Jump on it! Go crazy when the market is tanking, and go crazy when the market takes off. He wants action so he can create excitement and keep viewers. For the average investor, trading in and out is a recipe for disaster. But he has people who would otherwise be doing the smart thing, trading stocks and looking for short term action.
With 2000 stocks in his head, his analysis will be trite and shallow. He will only know what is very common knowledge.
But hats off to John Stewart for really turning the screw on Cramer and the whole bunch at CNBC. The show I think does even more damage is Fast Money. Everyone talking a mile a minute like they're doped up on meth. "Did I say sell? I mean't buy! Sell was yesterday! Buy tomorrow at the opening! Sell at 11! Buy back options at 12:30! Sell puts at 1! Long term (over the next 10 hours) this should reverse on a technical! Etcetera.
Where is the show featuring someone like Louis Rukeyser who exhibited a calm demeanor and tried to get behind the day to day ups and downs to help investors decipher the markets?
Every stock broker knows its easier to sell a bull market to the populace. Even though you hear a great deal about short sellers, it is not a strategy employed by the average investor. Hence the entertainment shows will always have that bias of goosing the bull. Market is up people! Tune in at 8 for tips on how you can profit! Don't miss out on the easy money! Don' t be a fool! Easy money here! When bear markets take hold, the average investor throws in the towel and goes away.
1. Before and after Cramer's show there is a Disclosure reading "individuals must do their own research before buying or selling securities, and Cramer's is only for entertainment". If people believed everything that Cramer said then I say they were lazies and/or moron, period.
2. Vast vast majority of investors and Market Gurus or economists like Alan Greenspan or Warren Buffet DID not see the collapse of Bear Stearns, WaMu, Lehman etc coming. I did not expect CNBC to know what was coming. They are not real ANALYSTS: they just report the news AFTER the fact. Individuals should do the ANALYSIS.
3. Interest rates were going up, real estate prices were tumbling and the foreclosures were more than anticipated, which created the tsunami of financial sector meltdown which precipitated the broad market decline towards serious recession. Consumers, banks and Governments were ALL over leveraged which exasperated the whole decline to the bottom.
We are all to be blamed for the excesses, including Cramer, CNBC, Greenspan, Paulson, W Bush, Clinton and ALL the members of Congress for sleeping at the switch.
Cramer looked better than I expected. I wouldn't invest a dime in his fund no matter what his previous track record says. He is just another product of the bull market and that is over.
*** >On Mar 13 11:06 AM APM wrote: < ***
> I found Cramer entertaining to watch. When I am too lazy to do any
> thinking, I just put him on, like watching a dog do the tricks.
* * *> But I did like what Jon Stewart said about having two games going
> on, one is for public, about keep investing into 401K and pension
> for the long term, the other is for the industry, all about quick
> trading and short term profits.
>
> This has been my suspicion all along. Remember what was the promise
> to the workers thirty years ago ... be loyal to the company, work
> hard, and we will take care of you with pension. Now they changed
> the rules, and kicking people off the pension plan (if it still exists)
> after thirty years of service.
>
* * * > So what's the story for the working bees today? Save regularly over
> thirty years, put the savings into 401K and IRA (because income tax
> rate may be lower), diversify (between bonds and stocks only), and
> you will be fine when you retire ... < * * *
>
> * * * What if it is all a hoax? What is preventing them (the government
> and business) from changing the rules after thirty years? * * *
>
> And judging from the recent events, I would say they definitely will
> change the rules to screw up the savers again.
>
> So make sure you really spread your savings, into other countries,
> into other asset classes beyond stocks and bonds.
>
>
>
>
>
How about exposing to America how they have been scammed by their elected officials for nearly a Century , and explain to them what exactly the Fed Reserve is and get to the bottom of that snake pit?
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers". That's what Santelli calls main street people,
> losers. Well, if I'm a loser, then Santelli and people like him who
> share his mind set are nothing more than a bowel movement. Their
> mantra of no government involvement is like the Mafia crying "no
> police involvement!" Wall street and the turds on CNBC don't understand
> that the American people hate Wall Street, and anything Wall Street.
> They blame Wall Street, and rightfully so, for the economic mess
> we are in. And, now they want sympathy, HA! Cramer showed lots of
> courage by going on the Stewart show. He knew he was going to take
> some strong medicine, and he faced it head on. I have to say, Cramer
> does to some extent, expose the dirty side of Wall Street. He uses
> his show to educate and protect main street from the wall street
> thieves. There are some good people on Wall Street, some, probably
> the secretaries. Then, there's the broker licensed (license to steal)
> Wall Street Mafia. Talk about organized crime, these guys wrote the
> book. John Stewart went after the turds of CNBC because Sentelli
> and the rest of the crew, including Cramer, are coming down a little
> too hard on the President. They are blaming the President for the
> mess that the cowboy jack ass left us. Stewart and some others who
> have the power of the air waves noticed, and don't like it.
On Mar 13 11:01 AM FE812 wrote:
> The issue here is not what these two peddlers of misinformation are
> saying. It is the premise of the conversation. These banks were not
> "left unchecked", they were being forced into making loans that they
> wouldn't have otherwise made which created a market for bad debt.
> These banks in an effort to hedge their spiraling risk outlooks came
> up with wild dirivites and sold them to investors / other banks.
> The market was trying to correct for the inefficiencies forced upon
> it.
>
> Basically, in speaking to these videos; It's completely ridiculous
> for these two "TV personalities" (which, forgive me Cramer fans,
> is all they are) to try and blame the banks / the financial media
> / Wall Street etc. when their remedy is to let the inefficient government
> continue to manipulate the markets.
I thinks this is absolutely false. I first had experienced the banking culture and i can tell you that nobody held the gun to their heads to securitize loans they deemed too risky. Fanny and Freddie may have been forced to securitize ever increasing bad loan portfolios, but that's a totally different story. When banks created and sold CDOs it was about fees. It was about getting risk off the balance sheet into SPVs and it was about fees and the fact is that you get more money as a bank when you sell a complex derivative then if you sell a plain vanilla bond so you are in fact incentivized to sell complex instruments even if most anyone involved in the deal doesn't fully comprehend them.
On Mar 13 11:01 AM FE812 wrote:
> The issue here is not what these two peddlers of misinformation are
> saying. It is the premise of the conversation. These banks were not
> "left unchecked", they were being forced into making loans that they
> wouldn't have otherwise made which created a market for bad debt.
> These banks in an effort to hedge their spiraling risk outlooks came
> up with wild dirivites and sold them to investors / other banks.
> The market was trying to correct for the inefficiencies forced upon
> it.
>
> Basically, in speaking to these videos; It's completely ridiculous
> for these two "TV personalities" (which, forgive me Cramer fans,
> is all they are) to try and blame the banks / the financial media
> / Wall Street etc. when their remedy is to let the inefficient government
> continue to manipulate the markets.
As for Cramer, entertaining he is. But it isn't about helping the retail investor. Its about promoting himself (and NBC) His charitable trust is a prop to sell his show, his books and his company The Street. He is not financial at risk. He manages the trust but does not own the stock. At sometime in the past he donated stock or cash and took a tax deduction on his personal return. His disclosure is inadequate because it ever explains the lack of financial risk. It more like entering a stock market contest without actually using real money, your money.
I am certain that Jon Stewart did not read Cramer's first book nor does he have any knowledge of financial market history. Cramer has been upfront about how hedge funds operate and about how risky trading is for professionals or amateurs. They operate within the rules that they are given by the government. That book was an education for me and I recommend it to Mr. Stewart and everyone else. If Mr. Stewart wants someone other than himself to blame, he can look first to the Federal Agencies and the Congress, who eliminated Glass-Stegall for example. While I believe that in fact the stock markets are a means of relieving the public of its money, this situation is nothing new in the context of at least the last 100 or even 170 years. For example, read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by LeFevre, widely believed to be an account of Jesse Livermore's techniques. Folks, the information is out there.
What people don't realize is that when they take out a loan to buy a house and or when they purchase mutual funds or even CDs, they are investors taking on risk. Yet many do this in abject ignorance of the risk and in fact are determined not to put in the time to learn about the markets. They can blame the talking heads on CNBC or far more fairly, the Federal government, but in the end, everyone must make peace with the fact that we are all investors and that we need to understand the risks that we have taken on.
So Jon Stewart and other vigilantes can run around blaming everyone else and feeling betrayed if they want to do so. However, a more productive attitude is that we can all learn from our mistakes and move forward more effectively as investors in the future. Right now, market history tells us that we investors have a rare opportunity to make excellent returns in stocks and other financial instruments. Once again, we just have to work hard at understanding what we are buying.
I keep repeating myself in this forum, but we need to stop demonizing individuals, networks, politicians, institutions, etc., and we need to take a hard look in the mirror. At the center if this debacle are the short attention span, and lack of financial/investment and civic/political education of the American people. Let's work on that.
On Mar 13 08:32 AM User 364369 wrote:
> It took a comedian to explain to investors how things really work
> on wall street. Amazing. Cramer just pleads ignorance - who believes
> him?
When times were good, NOBODY asked questions. I have news for Jon and Jim for that matter; the market has/is/always will be based on FEAR and GREED. FEAR AND GREED, OK?
It is IMPOSSIBLE for the AVERAGE person to make better than the AVERAGE return...that's why it's called "AVERAGE". Doesn't matter if it's stocks, a house, whatever.
If investors' as a whole have been making 15% per year for 10 years, the next 10 have to be an average of 1% in order to get back to the long-term average predicated on valuations and economic growth.
It simply cannot be any other way.
So keep on crucifying the "Rich" like Cramer on CNBC. I'll happily be buying stocks hand over fist whenever the Dow Jones is a standard deviation below it's long-term valuation.
Thanks for securing my future!
On Mar 13 12:54 PM coloneldebugger wrote:
> The thing that disturbs me most about this assclown is all sycophants
> following him, this website included. People hang on his every word
> like it's some sort of financial gospel. He's all over this website,
> he's had more attention this week than the president. Anyone who
> knows even a little about him knows he's nothing more than a screaming
> monkey with a microphone and camera on him. He adds nothing to the
> greater good of anything. Cramer is the Morton Downey Jr for the
> financial white trash morons. And I will truly delete my bookmark
> to this site if his name shows up in my watchlist again.
>
>
Sadly, Most people are sheep.
People with bad credit should have never gotten mortgages to begin with. Who in their right mind would give people home loans when they have already demonstrated that they can't even pay credit cards, car loans, rent, etc. on time??? Insanity.
And now the govt. comes to the rescue to bail these knuckleheads out???
The only people Santelli upset were the freeloaders.
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers". That's what Santelli calls main street people,
> losers. Well, I'm a loser.
I would agree with those who consider Cramer's credibility to be non-existent however, what is more concerning is the public's lack of understanding re: our political system. Keep in mind the reason Cramer is being "called out" by the President's men is not because he may be a charlatan, but instead because he dared to criticise the President's policies.
Remember we live in a republic and do not have a king. Our system of government was set up with three equal branches (checks and balances) and there is supposed to also exist a skeptical and even fiercely critical free press. This syatem is also intended to prevent the "tryanny of the majority."
The fact that commentators and journalists (members of the "free" press), regardless of their credibility, are now being "called out" by the Executive branch of our government indicates bad things for our nation in the future. It also is sad to see the so-called "free and skeptical press" also calling out others who dare to criticise government policy. When did it become unfashionable to be a rebel and criticise those who are in authority? Seems like once those who were once young and protesting in the streets against the "establishment" became the establishment, they no longer value the right of free political speech. Sad but true the reveolution always eats its children.
Seeking Alpha is a wonderful platform for mostly economic but also political discourse but while we worry and fret about TED spreads, TALF, and to bailout or not to bailout, I fear we are losing sight of the big picture and seeing our constitution slowly but methodically shredded like an Enron document party. Many of the comments to this story discuss the stupidity of following guys like Cramer, "we are all sheep," et.al. but they miss the point. Americans have the right to be stupid and wrong. How much longer will we have the right to criticise those in government without any consequences?
Has anyone considered whether the "bailouts" were constitutional? Does Treasury (executive branch) or the Fed (is this an administrative branch?) have the power/authority to do what they are doing? Was the injection of taxpayer funds into banks an implied power from the constitution and if so, in what article? Is the Fed's right to purchase any assets it considers necessary for the "greater good" listed in the constitution? Considering its and the Treasury's actions and ask yourself this question: Who benefits from these actions?
Notice Jon Steward wouldn't let Cramer get a word in. This is because he is manipulating the dialog for his show.
Cramer does the same thing. At times, he does provide some level of education for his "target" audience.
People who get their investment strategy and advice from CNBC shouldn't be investing in the first place. Cramer does always say DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
ONE THING I DO KNOW IS THAT SOMEWHERE, SOME DEMOGRAPAHIC IS GOING TO BE WEARING A ASSLOAD OF AXE BODY SPRAY!
On Mar 13 11:12 AM mr freddo wrote:
>
> That was a great show. I give Cramer credit for showing up and taking
> numerous shots to the head without trying to strike back.
>
> Cramer has a basic problem in that he is entertaining people with
> a show that goes on 5 days a week. It wouldn't be much of a show
> if he came on and said, "look people, diversify into these 5 or 10
> etf's, keep contributing no matter what, and then, don't worry about
> or watch it. It will go up, it will go down, but it should go up
> over a 5 to 10 year timeframe. Thank you. End of show."
>
> He has to stoke it! Jump on it! Go crazy when the market is tanking,
> and go crazy when the market takes off. He wants action so he can
> create excitement and keep viewers. For the average investor, trading
> in and out is a recipe for disaster. But he has people who would
> otherwise be doing the smart thing, trading stocks and looking for
> short term action.
>
> With 2000 stocks in his head, his analysis will be trite and shallow.
> He will only know what is very common knowledge.
>
> But hats off to John Stewart for really turning the screw on Cramer
> and the whole bunch at CNBC. The show I think does even more damage
> is Fast Money. Everyone talking a mile a minute like they're doped
> up on meth. "Did I say sell? I mean't buy! Sell was yesterday!
> Buy tomorrow at the opening! Sell at 11! Buy back options at 12:30!
> Sell puts at 1! Long term (over the next 10 hours) this should reverse
> on a technical! Etcetera.
>
> Where is the show featuring someone like Louis Rukeyser who exhibited
> a calm demeanor and tried to get behind the day to day ups and downs
> to help investors decipher the markets?
>
> Every stock broker knows its easier to sell a bull market to the
> populace. Even though you hear a great deal about short sellers,
> it is not a strategy employed by the average investor. Hence the
> entertainment shows will always have that bias of goosing the bull.
> Market is up people! Tune in at 8 for tips on how you can profit!
> Don't miss out on the easy money! Don' t be a fool! Easy money
> here! When bear markets take hold, the average investor throws in
> the towel and goes away.
>
>
Jon Stewart was unfair and mean spirited during the interview. Cramer could have set him straight but was just plain spineless.
That being said, a lot of his analysis and commentary is insightful and can be a great start for learning and further research. I also have to defend him from the likes of Stewart whose implications are "if you were smart you'd always be right". He somehow gets the view that a smart money manager can predict the future 100% of the time with zero downside risk. This is even dumber than investing in CNBC's buy/sell calls.
I still have to give Cramer credit for actually sticking his neck out and making calls. He does his best to be right, and generally acknowledges when he was wrong. Too many others are content to live their lives criticizing others (Stewart)without even making an attempt to accurately represent anything. Within reason, I'll always stick by the man in the arena over the critic.
He doesn't get paid off to make a company look good or bad. Nor does he get paid to be right or wrong or do any honest analysis. He gets paid to geat viewers to get emotional and watch non stop for the latest trading tips.
To be frank, I don't care for the guy, but if it wasn't him it would be another person doing the same thing. As we have all learned, when it comes to allocating your money it's always buyer beware.
CNBC = Financial Pornography
Not one of my wealthy friends got out. At the time they all had investments far greater than mine. Now the tide has turned - so much for professional advice!!
Caveat emptor, don't ever trust anyone with your money - they don't give a shit!
2) He didn't really attack Cramer, but the whole industry and Cramer took it very well
3) It is a shame that there really hasn't been any major news papers reporting about how the market is manipulated and the games that are played. I think this is a major news story for the masses.
4) The games that go on can not occur without the blessing of Washington. Together they are having a laugh at everyone's expense. Take the Madoff deal. He goes to prison but doesn't have to speak about any of the details of his scheme. Of course this is exactly what the government wants, because they are in on the game and he could really damage folks.
5) At least Cramer had the courage to call Paulson the liar he is. Why can't the "real" news say it like it is and just call people out when it is deserved.
OK. Let's compare these undefined and unproven effective policies (after a whopping seven weeks of implmentation) against the backdrop of some very well-defined, proved ineffective policies of the past thirty years, apparently with which the author is perfectly comfortable.
Unfortunately, we have been "staying the course" for at least the past THIRTY years.
The introduction, ascendency and idolatry of Milton Friedman's brand of shock economics has done more to destroy the world's economy than any econmic theory in our lifetime. This is not just Reaganomics /Bushanomics, but the pitting of haves/have nots in a global play orchestrated through Milton's disciples within the IMF, World Bank, and governing neo-conservative world view since at least 1975.
Cutting taxes on the wealthy and re-distributing middle class income up to those captains of industry combined with wholesale deregulation and nary a veto over the past six years of spending bills full of Republican pork projects, and conveniently leaving the $1 Trillion dollars of Iraq war spending off the books while the national debt ballooned from around $5 Trillion to $10.6 Trillion at last peek is an ingenious spin on what constitutes supply side stimulus, if not outright delusion.
Count the change left in your pockets, unless of course you are one of the few who benefitted from this latest episode of Shock Economics so popular with necons. I'll just ask you the same question Reagan used to ask: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
If you're in the same boat as the rest of us, our "staying the course" has undeniably run the lot of us aground. If you have benefitted, then you're one of the lucky 2% that control 80% of America's wealth, completely comfortable that you'll ride out the storm until the next lunatic can covince most of the people all of the time into something completely counter to their own self interest.
On Mar 13 09:22 AM Neil459 wrote:
> smlcap, the democrats hold a lot of responsibility for this mess.
> Remember they have been in charge of congress for over two years.
> Remember transparency, now its transparency next time. Remember
> no pork, now its no pork next time. In September 2003, Frank, then
> the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, opposed
> a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie
> Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress.
>
> If you think with the new president its going to get better, then
> history says you are sadly wrong. When will you ideologues get it,
> power corrupts, without a media watchdog power corrupts absolutely.
> The new president has no watchdog and will be as or more corrupt
> than his predecessor.
>
>
>
1- CNBC and other financial news networks should be do real reporting, snooping, uncovering fraud and be the ones to expose crimes and shady dealings when the SEC and other regulators don't.
2- Cramer pitched doing dodgy business himself (in those clips #212 etc in the video) and vocalized shady borderline illegal trading strategies to manipulate markets!
So not only did the Daily Show call out CNBC/Cramer for not doing real investigative reporting, but they also exposed Cramer himself. Ironic but great and hopefully will have a real impact.
Instead, he goes after CNBC by picking ninety seconds worth of mistakes out of nine hundred hours' worth of blather. Big deal, cheap shots, something a gorilla can do. In so doing, though, he NEVER addresses the thing he claims triggered his response - why do taxpayers have to pay for the flippers? Or did I already say that?
Stewart made a good point to Cramer/CNBC: don't call yourself an expert if you don't have the huevos to go after the bad guys. Simple point, good point.
He made a second good point: don't preach the value of long term investing to attract 75 year old mothers and then throw them under the bus. If you cater to them, do an honest job of that. Simple point, good point.
But why does Stewart dodge the main point? Why doesn't he address the very thing that made Santelli's rant resonate with half the population? Could it be he is just as much of a wuss as he calls Cramer?
He calls Cramer out for calling himself an expert and not exposing the phonies. By calling out CNBC, Stewart just put himself in exactly the same position. If you want to call people out, you better be better than them. Is he, though?
Cramer had the guts to go face the man. I'm not a fan, but that counts for something.
Santelli's point, in my book, still stands: why DO I have to foot the bill for the guy next door who bought four houses to flip them and got caught in his greed? Why is nobody addressing that (valid) part of Santelli's rant? Or did I already mention that?
The honest, hard working neighbor who got laid off is one thing... and by far the minority in the banking crisis. And not the guy Santelli targeted. By far the most foreclosed loans are the flippers in California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona, who have no incentive whatsoever to hold onto their houses. Why are they being let off the hook so easy? Santelli called that, and he deserves at least some credit for nailing it... and I still wanna know! Or did I say that already?
Stewart dodges that point all the time, and that makes him as much of a wuss as he accuses Cramer of being.
Santelli (I'm not a fan, by the way) called out an unfairness that resonated with many, self included. All Stewart has done is poke fun at some of the other CNBC crap. Why? Is he in default because he also was flipping houses, so he wants to divert attention?
Or is he just a wuss? But I think I already said that.
SO, illuminate us with your vast experience that allows you to separate the CNBC wheat from the crap.
Why not begin with your own track record over the past two years?
On Mar 13 02:19 PM Ben Steinway wrote:
> Cramer disappointed me on the Daily Show. He lay down like a pussy
> and feigned contrition in order to appease Jon Stewart. Meanwhile
> Stewart was slinging half truths and, at best, layman populist market
> bullcrap. I am a market professional and keep CNBC on at all times.
> The key to watching CNBC is distinguishing the signal from the noise.
> This comes from decades of market experience and I'm sorry if laymen
> take it ALL as 'signal.' But I don't feel CNBC touts their reporting
> as entirely correct signals. Hey, it's no secret that Cramer's stock
> picks don't ouperform the market -- but he does give a lot of good
> insight into things and tells you to do your own homework.
>
> Jon Stewart was unfair and mean spirited during the interview. Cramer
> could have set him straight but was just plain spineless.
If you think CNBC or Cramer does not give good advices, fair enough, change your source. I dont like Cramer's show, a little to "mad" for me but I just watch it as well as I read some analysts from whatever banks that were bailed out.
Market manipulation, it is also part of the game ! One of the rule of investing is that the market is always right manipulated or not. If you think you cannot bear that then buy your stocks for dividends or just dont get into the market.
Now about Jon Stewart, he is acting like the semi-god of the stock market but hey, it is always easy to say once everything happenned. Also all his little notes must have been prepared by dozens of people to look clever. Maybe, maybe not. I just dont like the attitude of disrespecting people. It is not because I dont like somebody that I will disrespect him and spit on him.
While Cramer isn't perfect, who is? And I'll give Cramer props for telling people to sell 25% of their portfolio right before the October meltdown and also calling out Obama for causing the market to spiral in February and early March.
Most people who regularly watch CNBC know the game and profit from it one way or another. The biggest conflicts of interest shown every day are the money managers who lie about not being able to time the market and urge viewer to stay in the market regardless. Like Buffett, they make their money when the suckers are in the market regardless. They don't make money when clients are in cash, where those who still have their money have been for the last 18 to 24 months. Every asset manager should be required to disclose that he or she or their firms make 1.5% to 2% of assets that their clients have invested and that they make nothing if clients aren't invested. I don't think that conflict is well understood, but I am working to make that point better known.
The big question is why guests waste their time on the show when they're given only a few seconds to make their points? Answer probably is that they hope to be invited back for longer spots, but they look like fools. They think they impress their clients by being invited on CNBC and FBN, but they look like egomaniacs, not analysts.
CNBC could be upgraded, but remember that it's owned by GE, which has been manipulating its numbers for years and owns the rant channel MSNBC and the virtual PR channel for Obama, NBC. As for Jon Stewart, I'm guessing that he's being fed his lines by the Democratic National Committee and other friends of Obama. He works for the owner of the Dan Rather network, CBS, which is dominated by even more lefties than MSNBC. Watch accordingly.
Notice how much more often we have booms followed by busts since WW II.
Also, remember the federal government never had any true accounting "surpluses" in the 1990's. We did make much progress in reducing the size of each year's deficit both in total dollars and as a percent of GDP but we never had a year in which receipts actually exceeded expenditures. One must be careful of the saying that if you hear something often enough you will begin to believe it.
If you really think the last eight years are the only cause of today's turmoil, you will never truly understand the role of the Fed in our more frequently occurring boom-bust business cycles. The fact that Keynesian economics has dominated American and Western economic policy since WW II is the biggest single driver of the boom-bust cycles. Don't make the mistake of crediting the supply-siders and Friedmanites with having a complete economic theory. Although I do agree with Friedman on one thing: inflation is always a monetary phenomenon. What he did not tell you is that inflation is a tool used by policy makers in Washington for their own benefit and they have total control of inflation. They don't have a complete theory. Theirs is not a "school" of economic thought comparable to the classical school, the Keynesian school or the Austrian school of thought. They are little more than a "conservative" version of Keynesianism. They support the Fed's intervention in setting interest rates at artificially low rates, and manipulating (growing) the money supply, and they are also guilty of wasteful and interventionist fiscal policy and deficit spending.
Your comment about staying the course for thirty years is not quite correct. We have actually been staying the course for 60+ years and we are still staying the course. We are being told that our government will get the economy back on the right track by what? By doing exactly the same things we have been doing the past 60 years: spending, inflating, borrowing and not saving. Pure genious that if we just do more of what got us here we will get out! What's sad is that most of us have bought the "cure" hook, line and sinker.
TALF (Term Asset Backed Lending Facility) is a great example of throwing gasoline on the fire. The credit markets are supposedly "frozen" so people can't get loans to buy stuff and that's hurting economic growth. What if the people are leveraged up to their eyballs and need to pay down some debt before going back on their next spending spree? Enter Helicopter Ben to the rescue. At some point, many of the loans within the ABS's, CDO's, CMBS's and yes more of the MBS's are going to continue to default due to the borrowers' inability to service the debt even at near 0.0% interest rates. But somehow, TALF is going to give the economy a "shot in the arm" starting in Q2. Watch out for sequel when these new debt instruments start defaulting in 2010 and 2011.
Just wanted to add a few points to your reply.
On Mar 13 05:33 PM mediapro wrote:
> It's so nice to hear from the newly converted who now realize, after
> seeing a record deficit created off a surplus after eight years of
> the final chapter of supply-side Friedmanomics, to now become a reflective,
> reasonable wisdm spouter.
>
> OK. Let's compare these undefined and unproven effective policies
> (after a whopping seven weeks of implmentation) against the backdrop
> of some very well-defined, proved ineffective policies of the past
> thirty years, apparently with which the author is perfectly comfortable.
>
>
> Unfortunately, we have been "staying the course" for at least the
> past THIRTY years.
>
> The introduction, ascendency and idolatry of Milton Friedman's brand
> of shock economics has done more to destroy the world's economy than
> any econmic theory in our lifetime. This is not just Reaganomics
> /Bushanomics, but the pitting of haves/have nots in a global play
> orchestrated through Milton's disciples within the IMF, World Bank,
> and governing neo-conservative world view since at least 1975.<br/>
>
> Cutting taxes on the wealthy and re-distributing middle class income
> up to those captains of industry combined with wholesale deregulation
> and nary a veto over the past six years of spending bills full of
> Republican pork projects, and conveniently leaving the $1 Trillion
> dollars of Iraq war spending off the books while the national debt
> ballooned from around $5 Trillion to $10.6 Trillion at last peek
> is an ingenious spin on what constitutes supply side stimulus, if
> not outright delusion.
>
> Count the change left in your pockets, unless of course you are one
> of the few who benefitted from this latest episode of Shock Economics
> so popular with necons. I'll just ask you the same question Reagan
> used to ask: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
>
>
> If you're in the same boat as the rest of us, our "staying the course"
> has undeniably run the lot of us aground. If you have benefitted,
> then you're one of the lucky 2% that control 80% of America's wealth,
> completely comfortable that you'll ride out the storm until the next
> lunatic can covince most of the people all of the time into something
> completely counter to their own self interest.
>
> On Mar 13 09:22 AM Neil459 wrote:
I still think Bloomberg does a good job of covering things with an objective point of view.
His questions and rants were uninformed and unfair.
If the SEC, Congress, rating agencies and the markets didn't catch on to the Ponzi scheme being run by Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Wall Street, Mortgage bankers and lying borrowers, CNBC was supposed to? Even the WSJ failed to pickup on a tip on the Madoff crimes. Forbes still doesn't get it.
Stewart's mad because his mother's 401k is worth less than a year ago, and he probably pays some financial adviser to lose his money for him.
Cramer's experienced, smart and outspoken, but not that all knowing. He can only be in one place at one time, just like the rest of us geniuses.
If I were Cramer (darn it, I'm not), I'd drop the clown act. Drop the dumb calls from viewers. Continue profiles of promising buys and shorts, and bring some 60 minutes type of reporting to the show.
The problem with this approach is that in any given year, how many 10 bangers are there? Would you take a few stocks that go up 20%? How often can you tout the same hot stocks and sectors before boring viewers to death and losing them?
Like Cramer says, CNBC has to fill 17 hours a day. That means we see and hear a lot of nonsense, redundancy, self-serving advocacy and talk about silver linings every day.
Maybe CNBC needs 10 David Fabers and Charlie Gasperinos and no Erin Burnetts. Send her to the Today Show.
Basing all your decisions off of a person's ranting about the economics of a company and praising others by hitting a button that makes a "hallelujah" sound isn't the best way to go about analyzing a company. Do you invest in what Oprah or Marth Stewart tells you to? Let's hope not.
If you can't take enough time to invest in your own future than maybe investing money isn't what you should be doing, perhaps you would be better stuffing it in a mattress. Removing all your responsibility from your finances and placing it in the lap of another person and then being angry that they lost it? Absolute bafoonery. Stand up for your self, those are the ideals of the individuals this country was founded by.
It is the responsibility of a U.S. citizen to question the government's stance on anything and everything and it is your responsibility to stand up and say vehemently say no if you disagree with the Government's stance.
If you can't... welcome back to slavery.
investmentscientist.co.../
In Cramer we Trust!!!
Watch TV, Get Rich!!!
Go, Cramer!!!
thehatemongers.blogspo...
On Mar 13 01:20 PM Tomcat101 wrote:
> Santelli was speaking up on behalf of all of us who DO pay our mortgages
> on time.
> People with bad credit should have never gotten mortgages to begin
> with. Who in their right mind would give people home loans when
> they have already demonstrated that they can't even pay credit cards,
> car loans, rent, etc. on time??? Insanity.
> And now the govt. comes to the rescue to bail these knuckleheads
> out???
>
> The only people Santelli upset were the freeloaders.
I do not agree that because you weren't "cheer leading" the financial market, you are absolved with any guilt. You took a mortgage, you're part of the problem. Things were breaking down before your very eyes but you didn't care then. Now you do. Your ignorance burned you and now you're crying wolf. Typical.
not doing research and engaging mouth misleads and is morally wrong. cramer knows this. if is looks like a duck, and acts like a duck, ........
He may be experienced, however he made almost all his money during the last and greatest bull market of our lifetime from 1982 to 2000. During that time he only made money because the market was going up. In fact, in his first book he ADMITS who the real brains of his operation was.
The person who told him to be in cash for 1987.
The person who told him what to do with the hedge fund to prepare for the 1991 Gulf War.
The person who came out of retirement and saved his fund from the edge of insolvency in 1998.
HIS WIFE
KAREN
Cramer was just another average fund manager who only knew how to make money in bull markets.
As far as being smart and outspoken, yes he is. He was smart enough to use marketing and develop multiple streams of royalty income to add to the millions of dollars he put in the bank during the 1982-2000 bull market.
Yes he is very smart.
He knows this country is a country of fools who spend more time watching "Dancing with the Stars" than trying to better their own lives. He knew people would respond well to a show about "gambling" masquerading as a show about investing, sprinkled with entertainment.
On that front he is a genius. He gets paid a few million a year to do Mad Money. He can (and often is) dead wrong, has no accountability, and has the backing of the GE/CNBC legal dept. In other words he is untouchable.
Not a bad job to have...eh?
<<CNBC producers program some of their anchors to be permabulls because viewers don't like the bearers of bad news. Never have.>>
EXACTLY RIGHT.
The job of CNBC is to tell the public "what they want to hear", not what they need to hear.
They take public information and spin it as if you are getting privileged information. The reality is, save for the rare occasion, by the time news is aired on CNBC, the market already knows it and rarely can you really profit from it, for the big boys have already made their bets.
I think that people liked this cramer grilling because of they dislike cramer, but... cramer is not responsible for people taking bad mortgages or banks leveraging 35:1 or rating agencies asigning bad incorrect ratings to CDOs or regulators doing the worst job ever in history in overseeing the market.
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers". That's what Santelli calls main street people,
> losers. Well, if I'm a loser, then Santelli and people like him who
> share his mind set are nothing more than a bowel movement. Their
> mantra of no government involvement is like the Mafia crying "no
> police involvement!" Wall street and the turds on CNBC don't understand
> that the American people hate Wall Street, and anything Wall Street.
> They blame Wall Street, and rightfully so, for the economic mess
> we are in. And, now they want sympathy, HA! Cramer showed lots of
> courage by going on the Stewart show. He knew he was going to take
> some strong medicine, and he faced it head on. I have to say, Cramer
> does to some extent, expose the dirty side of Wall Street. He uses
> his show to educate and protect main street from the wall street
> thieves. There are some good people on Wall Street, some, probably
> the secretaries. Then, there's the broker licensed (license to steal)
> Wall Street Mafia. Talk about organized crime, these guys wrote the
> book. John Stewart went after the turds of CNBC because Sentelli
> and the rest of the crew, including Cramer, are coming down a little
> too hard on the President. They are blaming the President for the
> mess that the cowboy jack ass left us. Stewart and some others who
> have the power of the air waves noticed, and don't like it.
On Mar 13 08:38 AM nobull wrote:
> Im no fan of Cramer but I dont give a doo-doo about John Stewart
> either - so why was this useless article sent to my inbox?
Because you signed up for it.
Do you expect every Internet newsletter to change your life?
On Mar 13 06:00 PM William Cowie wrote:
> Lemme see if I have this straight: Santelli did a rant. Stewart NEVER
> addresses the point of the rant, which is: why do I have to foot
> the bill for the flippers who bought five houses and got foreclosed
> on because the music stopped?
>
> Instead, he goes after CNBC by picking ninety seconds worth of mistakes
> out of nine hundred hours' worth of blather. Big deal, cheap shots,
> something a gorilla can do. In so doing, though, he NEVER addresses
> the thing he claims triggered his response - why do taxpayers have
> to pay for the flippers? Or did I already say that?
>
> Stewart made a good point to Cramer/CNBC: don't call yourself an
> expert if you don't have the huevos to go after the bad guys. Simple
> point, good point.
>
> He made a second good point: don't preach the value of long term
> investing to attract 75 year old mothers and then throw them under
> the bus. If you cater to them, do an honest job of that. Simple point,
> good point.
>
> But why does Stewart dodge the main point? Why doesn't he address
> the very thing that made Santelli's rant resonate with half the population?
> Could it be he is just as much of a wuss as he calls Cramer?
>
> He calls Cramer out for calling himself an expert and not exposing
> the phonies. By calling out CNBC, Stewart just put himself in exactly
> the same position. If you want to call people out, you better be
> better than them. Is he, though?
>
> Cramer had the guts to go face the man. I'm not a fan, but that counts
> for something.
>
> Santelli's point, in my book, still stands: why DO I have to foot
> the bill for the guy next door who bought four houses to flip them
> and got caught in his greed? Why is nobody addressing that (valid)
> part of Santelli's rant? Or did I already mention that?
>
> The honest, hard working neighbor who got laid off is one thing...
> and by far the minority in the banking crisis. And not the guy Santelli
> targeted. By far the most foreclosed loans are the flippers in California,
> Nevada, Florida and Arizona, who have no incentive whatsoever to
> hold onto their houses. Why are they being let off the hook so easy?
> Santelli called that, and he deserves at least some credit for nailing
> it... and I still wanna know! Or did I say that already?
>
> Stewart dodges that point all the time, and that makes him as much
> of a wuss as he accuses Cramer of being.
>
> Santelli (I'm not a fan, by the way) called out an unfairness that
> resonated with many, self included. All Stewart has done is poke
> fun at some of the other CNBC crap. Why? Is he in default because
> he also was flipping houses, so he wants to divert attention?
>
> Or is he just a wuss? But I think I already said that.
are the details of the housing bubble? another coverup by the liberal obama butt-worts? didn't clinton create the program that destroyed credit-worthy standards for potential home buyers? now that the dam has burst, can't we get a new political party into power that will not let the idiots who created the tsunami try to apply bandaids and destroy what is left of the u.s. and its economy? we no longer have two opposing political parties, and the result will be to turn a tragic, misguided mistake into a national catastrophe. most of the money to be made in the aftermath will be by parasitical lawyers and their corrupt judge allies, bandits posing as robin hoods raiding what is left of the corporate wealth of this country.
So Jon Stewart gets up on his high horse and attacks Jim Cramer for the way he portrays financial news, saying "it's not a f#cking game". Meanwhile, Jon Stewart pokes fun at the War in Iraq with glee.
The only reason Jon Stewart suddenly went after Cramer out of the blue was because Cramer (an Obama supporting Democrat) had the audacity to question Obama's economic policies. What scared Stewart is these criticisms were starting to get real traction with the investor community.
If you criticize the Messiah, his minions are going to come after you.
The media can't protect Obama forever. The American people are starting to realize Obama is a lot better at campaigning than he is at governing. Already Obama's approval rating have deteriorated, with his disapproval numbers doubling since he was sworn in, and it's only going to get worse.
Don't you think you are being a bit of a hypocrite in saying that CNBC does not give the world the entire truth?
Your show, responsible for millions of peoples' current event views, constantly barrages conservative authorities and agendas that our country should be backing.
You are an anti-patriot and a biased news reporter, so do not blame CNBC for giving the public incomplete information.
In September 2003, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, opposed a Bush administration proposal for transferring oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from Congress.
______________________...
This talking point straight out of Fox shows just how ignorant most people are of how the house of representatives works. Barney Frank could get on the floor every day for a year and propose or oppose anything he wanted, but if he is a minority member of the house, he can hardly take a crap without permission. In other words, the majority controls just about everything and anything in the house no matter what the minority wants. The fact is, the republicans controlled the Whitehouse and all that goes with it, SEC, Treasury and other regulatory agencies, the Fed with republican Alan Greenspan, the house from 1995 to 2007 and the senate for most of that time also. To blame Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, two minority members of congress, for the financial meltdown is to say that we were so incompetent, so derelict in our duty, so asleep at the switch, that we let a couple of guys who didn't have the power to do anything unless we let them, destroy our financial system.
I would think it makes sense to start a class action where homeowners can band together as a class and sue the Wall Street firms including Lehman Brothers, who happens to allegedly own my note via a CDO(collateralized debt obligation), which are these securitized bundles of mortgages. Everyone who has a mortgage is part of a CDO.
A ride back in history is in order.
The problem is that way back when, Wall Street firms (Lehman, Merrill, Bear Stears, etc) decided they could bundle mortgages into multi-layered single securities and sell these like hotcakes if they were to successfully obtain a AAA rating on the top layer.
They were indeed able to obtain this rating and they did sell the heck out of these to all kinds of investors everywhere including whole governments, banks, money market funds, and insurance companies. This led to the housing bubble which I and everyone else participated in via our owner-occupied home purchases and home improvements. Others participated via housing speculation (flipping and the like).
These Wall Street firms started owning increasing amounts of CDO's on their balance sheets. The former Merrill CEO was quoted as saying Merrill Lynch started "committing suicide" in 2005 by never selling any of it's CDO's and completely removing their risk. Lehman and Bear Stearns were no different. Seeing this increased concentration of assets that were benefiting from the housing bubble, Hedge Funds (these evil unregulated inefficient and costly mutual funds) decided a great strategy to capitalize on this was to buy insurance on the bet that the Wall Street firms would be succumbed by their risky CDO holdings and that this would cause the entire firm to fail.
Such insurance (a.k.a. credit default swaps) was happily sold to the hedge fund firms by the largest of insurance companies - AIG, and the hedge funds were even allowed to buy, if they wanted to, up to 40 times (40x!) the amount of the risk, a completely irresponsible practice but I digress. The hedge funds knew they would benefit if they were able to sink Lehman and the rest as they would cash in on the insurance. So they issued press releases essentially warning about the failure of the Wall Street firms. This caused traders everywhere to sell Lehman stock.
And these very same hedge funds who sent the press releases started shorting the stock of these firms at the same time! Since the "uptick rule" was abolished by President Bush, another irresponsible act but I again digress, anyone could short a stock (betting on the stock price going down, not up) to their heart's delight. The uptick rule allowed shorting twice only after a stock price's "uptick" or increase in it's price, but the rule was not in effect. All of this shorting and all of the negative press releases, drove the Wall Street firm's stock price into the gutter and caused the firm's to fail.
Washington's first reaction, thanks to the self-regulation ideology of the Bush administration, was to let the first of these firm's to simply fail. This happened to be Leman Brothers. And so the hedge funds were victorious in their strategy because they not only made billions shorting Lehman stock, but could also now cash in on the AIG swap insurance policies.
Yet these very insurance policies bankrupted AIG or could have bankrupted them.
Having learned that letting Lehman fail was a terrible mistake because of the message it sent and the ensuing financial panic that resulted, the Bush administration and later the Obama administration decided to bailout AIG multiple times and with multiple billions of dollars.
Once the housing market bubble finally popped, it was learned that these AAA CDO's, that originally started this whole mess, were really not AAA and were very sensitive to the housing market going down and foreclosures going up. This began the falling of the "house of cards" that CNBC reported David Fabier so eloquently reported on, because it decimated the CDO market and caused further financial panic because banks held a lot of these and they were required to mark the value of these CDO's to their market price (a.k.a. mark to market). Well, there was no market anymore and a zero value meant banks could not lend anymore. They were essentially "maxed-out" in a credit card analogy of sorts.
This caused the feds to bail them out, pumping more and more of our taxpayer money into banks to keep them alive and lending. Meanwhile, the folks who are bailing everyone out, the taxpayer, are left holding the bag. Many taxpayers are also homeowners. And even though we are bailing out the banks with tax dollars, for generations to come I might add, these same banks are breathing down homeowner thoats with foreclosure lawsuits because they cannot either sell their home at all or for any reasonable amount, or they were sold into mortgages that were ridiculous to any trained eye, and aren't even sold anymore, or we simply have less income thanks to this whole economic mess brought on by the Wall Street firm's way back when they decided to create mortgage-back CDO's and sell them to everyone.
<b>The start of the house of cards being built was the creation of the mortgage-CDO.</b>...
Thus, I think a new defense for homeowners in trying to save our homes is to sue the owners of the notes, or the alleged owners as it is in most cases. In my case, this would be Citibank as trustee for Lehman Brothers (Lehman has failed and Citibank is working things out for their assets I guess). Other firms are still in business such as Merrill Lynch(now owned by Bank of Amer). Or they have been taken over as is the case with Bear Stearns who is now owned by JP Morgan. Banks such as BofA and Chase should also be sued, but many were simply servicers, although they certainly benefited from the bubble.
All of these firms contributed to this whole mess and have shared culpability in my view. Homeowners are now having to pay for the cleaning up of this mess while also having to pay increased taxes for generations to come. In essence, we are being forced to pay twice the amount borrowed for our homes because of the increased taxes that will definitely be needed to pay this nation's deficit.
That was not part of the deal when we took out our mortgages. That is wholly unfair. And that is just plain wrong. Homeowners need to sue these firms, as a class action, to at least get their note returned to them free-n-clear because getting cash in these class actions is, generally, not going to happen since the atty's get the lion's share of settlements, which is fine by me, and that is only after expenses which will be sizeable(years of court battles). But homeowners can be given their notes back while any cash can go to the attorney's for fighting the good fight. Again, fine by me.
Ultimately, I think it is in the nation's interest to simply give the mortgagees back their notes from the lenders because of the situation created. They don't ask for free housing. We are all going to pay for our housing, believe me. All of us. Increased taxation is the only way to crawl out of this.
So, it is not a handout. It is a bailout, which if it is good for banks, it darn well should be good for homeowners.
This will also cure the property tax problem that so many cities are now suing for damages. People will start paying taxes again, having a home free and clear.
A class action lawsuit seeking to obtain relief from the alleged owners of the CDO's is just what is needed in addition to the standard fights everyone should already be doing alongside their good real estate attorney or other advocate.
We are pointing the fingers at the wrong people.
Squawk Box truly is just a Wall St. infomercial. In spite of a great guest list, even their guests admit that they don't want to say anything "negative". The point of a news network, the "fourth estate", is to use freedom of the press to challenge the spin and lies coming out of government or... Wall St. But CNBC has a different take; they pump up the market and suck up to corporations (sponsors?).
At least they give air time to Roubini, Schiff, and others who have been pointing out the house of cards for months and months. That is to their credit. But journalism? Please, they never do any digging or investigation of the lies told on their shows. It's sickening how badly they've sold out to self promotion and corporate interests.
The other week, CNBC anchors were talking about how unemployment may be due to Obama's policies. Please... unemployment has been rising and earnings falling for fourteen months, and these bimbos are suggesting that it's due to Obama?
Pump up the market, Republicans, etc. No journalism, no facts, just trash talk.
The free market (for all you dwindling number free marketeers out there) wants to execute BOTH of these parties. The free market would never have let these excesses happen in the first place. Were there crooks out there? Absolutely! But they were on BOTH sides of the this.
Now I know Mr. Stewart is beating the populist wardrum right now and it feels really good to stick it to the CNBC circus barkers BUT remember that Mr. Stewarts response is to Santellis rant against a bailout for homeowners which Mr. Stewart apparently advocates.
I say two wrongs don't make a right, and be careful of lining up behind a "pied piper" because only rats do that and we know what happened to them.
Not until then will we see a recovery ....and also when CNBC stops putting te Nagarian brothers on pumping and dumping their option plays to the unwitting public ..the SEC should investigate those two hucksters for "reporting unusual option activity " in specific companies ! They are the hypesters creating the unusual activity !
On Mar 13 08:38 AM nobull wrote:
> Im no fan of Cramer but I dont give a doo-doo about John Stewart
> either - so why was this useless article sent to my inbox?
On Mar 13 10:29 AM Ferdinand E. Banks wrote:
> Unfortunately I couldn't 'raise' the dialogue between these two performers,
> but perhaps it was all for the good. Stewart's gutter language and
> the hilarious laughter of his audience is a large part of what is
> wrong with the US.
You're living proof that you can't polish a turd.
You know that though.
On Mar 13 11:03 AM User 370702 wrote:
> Folks, you are focused on the trees. The news is the forrest: being
> long douchiness was good for years (maybe decades) and now it is
> the time to be short douchiness. CNBC has been one of the most unapologetic
> players in the long douchiness trade.
>
> BTW, if you don't know what I mean here by douchiness, then you are
> definately douchy.
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers". That's what Santelli calls main street people,
> losers. Well, if I'm a loser, then Santelli and people like him who
> share his mind set are nothing more than a bowel movement. Their
> mantra of no government involvement is like the Mafia crying "no
> police involvement!" Wall street and the turds on CNBC don't understand
> that the American people hate Wall Street, and anything Wall Street.
> They blame Wall Street, and rightfully so, for the economic mess
> we are in. And, now they want sympathy, HA! Cramer showed lots of
> courage by going on the Stewart show. He knew he was going to take
> some strong medicine, and he faced it head on. I have to say, Cramer
> does to some extent, expose the dirty side of Wall Street. He uses
> his show to educate and protect main street from the wall street
> thieves. There are some good people on Wall Street, some, probably
> the secretaries. Then, there's the broker licensed (license to steal)
> Wall Street Mafia. Talk about organized crime, these guys wrote the
> book. John Stewart went after the turds of CNBC because Sentelli
> and the rest of the crew, including Cramer, are coming down a little
> too hard on the President. They are blaming the President for the
> mess that the cowboy jack ass left us. Stewart and some others who
> have the power of the air waves noticed, and don't like it.
They are both comedy shows!
If you beleive Stewart, then why not feature all the others that missedd the call from Alan greenspan on down.
On the other hand, The daily show doesnt have the bush Administration to beat up on every night. So what are they to do. Go after Cramer or the new president. Jon Stewart is a pussy and wouldn't dare bite the Democratic hand that feeds him, so obviously he has to find a new foil and Cramer fits! But then he never claimed to be fair in his comedic coverage!
What should worry people is the fact that so many of the next generation to be in charge of the country get their "News" from the daily show!
THE BOTTOM IS IN....CNBC HAS BEEN EXPOSED..CRAMER IS A THIEF AND LARRY KUDLOW IS A STUPID CHEERLEADER DURING A BEAR MARKET....ITS TIME TO BUY..
But to get back on topic: Cramer is OK. . .his show is annoying (to me) but his books show he is not a fool. Did he know the tsunami was coming and button up? No, Jon, that's silly. But if you put your investment egg in lockstep with Cramer (and are upset with the results!) then you are at best very very lazy. I think Stewart made the point that CNBC (and the 24hour news/yell cycle) are to blame more than Cramer alone: it may be easy to confound and fleece the stupid, but it's not very nice. . .
Stewart bitches about populism, then happily resorts to it when convenient. Santelli is just a Chicago trader who, unlike Cramer & Stewart, didn't carefully plan his entry into this fiasco as a well-designed publicity stunt. You could see it on his face whenever some inane ideologue like Kudlow interviewed him shortly after his rant.
The fact is, like it or not, Santelli was right. Stewart was right, but took the cheapest, easiest route by skewering Rick. And Cramer is a clown. As for Stewart's arguments about how anyone on CNBC is tarnished simply by being on the station: uh, John, you're on MTV. You know, like you're no Ken Ober. Sorry.
Everyone is feeling an inner rage over the financial meltdown. While Stewart probably thought he was performing a cathartic public service, he didn't do enough homework to appreciate all the benefits Cramer brings to his middle class viewers. Instead of focusing on corrupt Wall Street greed monsters, CEOs from Cramer's Wall of Shame, incompetant government officials, or clueless Rick Santelli types, Stewart chose to attempt to discredit a good guy who is an advocate for Main Street. Last Friday morning, I would have preferred to be Cramer looking in the mirror than Stewart.
has all the young stupid Americans eating out of his
hands. On the other hand I now know why Cramer is a bleeding heart liberal. I sure wouldn't want him in a fox hole with me. What a wimp. He turns on anyone.
God Bless Rich Santelli a great American who says what he believes and screw the media. He also sticks to his guns and is very consistent with his philosophy. He also is a big fan of Frank Capra movies. Another great American.
"Mr. President, are you listening?" Stewart showed that Cramer has no back bone, just wants to please.
On Mar 13 06:00 PM William Cowie wrote:
> Lemme see if I have this straight: Santelli did a rant. Stewart NEVER
> addresses the point of the rant, which is: why do I have to foot
> the bill for the flippers who bought five houses and got foreclosed
> on because the music stopped?
>
> Instead, he goes after CNBC by picking ninety seconds worth of mistakes
> out of nine hundred hours' worth of blather. Big deal, cheap shots,
> something a gorilla can do. In so doing, though, he NEVER addresses
> the thing he claims triggered his response - why do taxpayers have
> to pay for the flippers? Or did I already say that?
>
> Stewart made a good point to Cramer/CNBC: don't call yourself an
> expert if you don't have the huevos to go after the bad guys. Simple
> point, good point.
>
> He made a second good point: don't preach the value of long term
> investing to attract 75 year old mothers and then throw them under
> the bus. If you cater to them, do an honest job of that. Simple point,
> good point.
>
> But why does Stewart dodge the main point? Why doesn't he address
> the very thing that made Santelli's rant resonate with half the population?
> Could it be he is just as much of a wuss as he calls Cramer?
>
> He calls Cramer out for calling himself an expert and not exposing
> the phonies. By calling out CNBC, Stewart just put himself in exactly
> the same position. If you want to call people out, you better be
> better than them. Is he, though?
>
> Cramer had the guts to go face the man. I'm not a fan, but that counts
> for something.
>
> Santelli's point, in my book, still stands: why DO I have to foot
> the bill for the guy next door who bought four houses to flip them
> and got caught in his greed? Why is nobody addressing that (valid)
> part of Santelli's rant? Or did I already mention that?
>
> The honest, hard working neighbor who got laid off is one thing...
> and by far the minority in the banking crisis. And not the guy Santelli
> targeted. By far the most foreclosed loans are the flippers in California,
> Nevada, Florida and Arizona, who have no incentive whatsoever to
> hold onto their houses. Why are they being let off the hook so easy?
> Santelli called that, and he deserves at least some credit for nailing
> it... and I still wanna know! Or did I say that already?
>
> Stewart dodges that point all the time, and that makes him as much
> of a wuss as he accuses Cramer of being.
>
> Santelli (I'm not a fan, by the way) called out an unfairness that
> resonated with many, self included. All Stewart has done is poke
> fun at some of the other CNBC crap. Why? Is he in default because
> he also was flipping houses, so he wants to divert attention?
>
> Or is he just a wuss? But I think I already said that.
In regards to your strategy, just keep your eyes pealed on the developments in New York where AG Cuomo has a supoena out on the AIG bonus babies. Investigations into the corrupt business pratices and outright fraud are already under way. Your suggestions of homeowner, and I would add, shareholder lawsuits are just a breath away.
On Mar 14 10:40 PM Stranded in my unsold home wrote:
> Predatory lending is just one bad practice that killed the investment
> bank's CDO exposure. I was curious if anyone thinks it makes sense
> to create a class and sue the investment banks for creating this
> whole mess in the first place.
>
> I would think it makes sense to start a class action where homeowners
> can band together as a class and sue the Wall Street firms including
> Lehman Brothers, who happens to allegedly own my note via a CDO(collateralized
> debt obligation), which are these securitized bundles of mortgages.
> Everyone who has a mortgage is part of a CDO.
>
> A ride back in history is in order.
>
> The problem is that way back when, Wall Street firms (Lehman, Merrill,
> Bear Stears, etc) decided they could bundle mortgages into multi-layered
> single securities and sell these like hotcakes if they were to successfully
> obtain a AAA rating on the top layer.
>
> They were indeed able to obtain this rating and they did sell the
> heck out of these to all kinds of investors everywhere including
> whole governments, banks, money market funds, and insurance companies.
> This led to the housing bubble which I and everyone else participated
> in via our owner-occupied home purchases and home improvements. Others
> participated via housing speculation (flipping and the like). <br/>
>
> These Wall Street firms started owning increasing amounts of CDO's
> on their balance sheets. The former Merrill CEO was quoted as saying
> Merrill Lynch started "committing suicide" in 2005 by never selling
> any of it's CDO's and completely removing their risk. Lehman and
> Bear Stearns were no different. Seeing this increased concentration
> of assets that were benefiting from the housing bubble, Hedge Funds
> (these evil unregulated inefficient and costly mutual funds) decided
> a great strategy to capitalize on this was to buy insurance on the
> bet that the Wall Street firms would be succumbed by their risky
> CDO holdings and that this would cause the entire firm to fail.
>
>
> Such insurance (a.k.a. credit default swaps) was happily sold to
> the hedge fund firms by the largest of insurance companies - AIG,
> and the hedge funds were even allowed to buy, if they wanted to,
> up to 40 times (40x!) the amount of the risk, a completely irresponsible
> practice but I digress. The hedge funds knew they would benefit if
> they were able to sink Lehman and the rest as they would cash in
> on the insurance. So they issued press releases essentially warning
> about the failure of the Wall Street firms. This caused traders everywhere
> to sell Lehman stock.
>
> And these very same hedge funds who sent the press releases started
> shorting the stock of these firms at the same time! Since the "uptick
> rule" was abolished by President Bush, another irresponsible act
> but I again digress, anyone could short a stock (betting on the stock
> price going down, not up) to their heart's delight. The uptick rule
> allowed shorting twice only after a stock price's "uptick" or increase
> in it's price, but the rule was not in effect. All of this shorting
> and all of the negative press releases, drove the Wall Street firm's
> stock price into the gutter and caused the firm's to fail. <br/>
>
> Washington's first reaction, thanks to the self-regulation ideology
> of the Bush administration, was to let the first of these firm's
> to simply fail. This happened to be Leman Brothers. And so the hedge
> funds were victorious in their strategy because they not only made
> billions shorting Lehman stock, but could also now cash in on the
> AIG swap insurance policies.
>
> Yet these very insurance policies bankrupted AIG or could have bankrupted
> them.
>
> Having learned that letting Lehman fail was a terrible mistake because
> of the message it sent and the ensuing financial panic that resulted,
> the Bush administration and later the Obama administration decided
> to bailout AIG multiple times and with multiple billions of dollars.
>
>
> Once the housing market bubble finally popped, it was learned that
> these AAA CDO's, that originally started this whole mess, were really
> not AAA and were very sensitive to the housing market going down
> and foreclosures going up. This began the falling of the "house of
> cards" that CNBC reported David Fabier so eloquently reported on,
> because it decimated the CDO market and caused further financial
> panic because banks held a lot of these and they were required to
> mark the value of these CDO's to their market price (a.k.a. mark
> to market). Well, there was no market anymore and a zero value meant
> banks could not lend anymore. They were essentially "maxed-out" in
> a credit card analogy of sorts.
>
> This caused the feds to bail them out, pumping more and more of our
> taxpayer money into banks to keep them alive and lending. Meanwhile,
> the folks who are bailing everyone out, the taxpayer, are left holding
> the bag. Many taxpayers are also homeowners. And even though we
> are bailing out the banks with tax dollars, for generations to come
> I might add, these same banks are breathing down homeowner thoats
> with foreclosure lawsuits because they cannot either sell their home
> at all or for any reasonable amount, or they were sold into mortgages
> that were ridiculous to any trained eye, and aren't even sold anymore,
> or we simply have less income thanks to this whole economic mess
> brought on by the Wall Street firm's way back when they decided to
> create mortgage-back CDO's and sell them to everyone.
>
> <b>The start of the house of cards being built was the creation of
> the mortgage-CDO.</b&am...
>
> Thus, I think a new defense for homeowners in trying to save our
> homes is to sue the owners of the notes, or the alleged owners as
> it is in most cases. In my case, this would be Citibank as trustee
> for Lehman Brothers (Lehman has failed and Citibank is working things
> out for their assets I guess). Other firms are still in business
> such as Merrill Lynch(now owned by Bank of Amer). Or they have been
> taken over as is the case with Bear Stearns who is now owned by JP
> Morgan. Banks such as BofA and Chase should also be sued, but many
> were simply servicers, although they certainly benefited from the
> bubble.
>
> All of these firms contributed to this whole mess and have shared
> culpability in my view. Homeowners are now having to pay for the
> cleaning up of this mess while also having to pay increased taxes
> for generations to come. In essence, we are being forced to pay twice
> the amount borrowed for our homes because of the increased taxes
> that will definitely be needed to pay this nation's deficit.
>
> That was not part of the deal when we took out our mortgages. That
> is wholly unfair. And that is just plain wrong. Homeowners need to
> sue these firms, as a class action, to at least get their note returned
> to them free-n-clear because getting cash in these class actions
> is, generally, not going to happen since the atty's get the lion's
> share of settlements, which is fine by me, and that is only after
> expenses which will be sizeable(years of court battles). But homeowners
> can be given their notes back while any cash can go to the attorney's
> for fighting the good fight. Again, fine by me.
>
> Ultimately, I think it is in the nation's interest to simply give
> the mortgagees back their notes from the lenders because of the situation
> created. They don't ask for free housing. We are all going to pay
> for our housing, believe me. All of us. Increased taxation is the
> only way to crawl out of this.
>
> So, it is not a handout. It is a bailout, which if it is good for
> banks, it darn well should be good for homeowners.
>
> This will also cure the property tax problem that so many cities
> are now suing for damages. People will start paying taxes again,
> having a home free and clear.
>
> A class action lawsuit seeking to obtain relief from the alleged
> owners of the CDO's is just what is needed in addition to the standard
> fights everyone should already be doing alongside their good real
> estate attorney or other advocate.
You mentioned all the liars on Wall Street, how about all the liars in Washington that have increase the deficit higher than all administrations from Washington to Bush. How about all the wastefull sending since the "Great Society' that has not accomplished anything and yet we the taxpayers are paying for it.
How are we going to pay back all this money back that politicans have put on us?
On Mar 13 08:04 AM smlcap wrote:
> I understand that Wall Street is loaded with liars and thieves, but
> to see Cramer in that same light just seems weird. Just think of
> what creeps like Santelli and the rest of the turds on CNBC are whining
> about. They don't like the new President because he is going to make
> it harder for them to steal and cheat. They don't want the government
> to help the "losers". That's what Santelli calls main street people,
> losers. Well, if I'm a loser, then Santelli and people like him who
> share his mind set are nothing more than a bowel movement. Their
> mantra of no government involvement is like the Mafia crying "no
> police involvement!" Wall street and the turds on CNBC don't understand
> that the American people hate Wall Street, and anything Wall Street.
> They blame Wall Street, and rightfully so, for the economic mess
> we are in. And, now they want sympathy, HA! Cramer showed lots of
> courage by going on the Stewart show. He knew he was going to take
> some strong medicine, and he faced it head on. I have to say, Cramer
> does to some extent, expose the dirty side of Wall Street. He uses
> his show to educate and protect main street from the wall street
> thieves. There are some good people on Wall Street, some, probably
> the secretaries. Then, there's the broker licensed (license to steal)
> Wall Street Mafia. Talk about organized crime, these guys wrote the
> book. John Stewart went after the turds of CNBC because Sentelli
> and the rest of the crew, including Cramer, are coming down a little
> too hard on the President. They are blaming the President for the
> mess that the cowboy jack ass left us. Stewart and some others who
> have the power of the air waves noticed, and don't like it.