Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer
 

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LMAO

I'll take Jon Stewart and the points.

Heheh. Smart man.

Have you been following this? It's pretty awesome.

Looks like Cramer's going on TDS tomorrow night.

Sounds like must-see TV. :D

http://gawker.com/5168076/cnbc-execs...the-daily-show

Hooray for the pendejos!

Ha!!! This whole thing has been brutal...and methinks that episode will be even worse. Should make for some good, awkward television.

Wow...

NBC looks like a sad bunch. Frowny faces make me feel sad too.

Cracked me up. Stewart is owning on this.LMAO

Stewart is destroying this fool.

Scarborough needs a claw hammer enema.

Comedy for smart people.

why does Stewart refuse make fun of Obama? He's become such an agenda pushing bitch

You don't watch the show much, do 'ya?

i check in every once in awhile. I usually see a clip that makes me think he's going to take a jab at Obama, but then he turns it around and the joke's on some conservative Obama hater (cue the approving uproar in the audience)

This is getting good!

Why doesnt Cramer just laugh it off, it would have went away by now. I am glad he didnt, its great entertainment.
Scarborough has a large stick in his ass. Never have liked him.

And that's why he doesn't take shots at obama (yet). His audience. And I don't mean the one in the studio. Advertisers don't like it when you lose your target demographic, and networks don't like it when you lose your advertisers.

Down the road, if this president becomes as unpopular as the last, it'll be a nightly roast.

He's poked at Obama several times. There's at least one or two WTF's???every week on that show.

He doesn't get vindictive, but he DOES point some questionable, less than flattering "to-do's" out on a pretty regular basis.

He did an admirable job. And I think he said it best at the end: You (Cramer) are the face of this and I don't think that's fair.

Stewart just clubbed Cramer like a baby seal.

I have always hated Cramer's show because I'm basically a buy-and-holder and find his show to be unwise and silly. Even with my bias, I started to feel sorry for him in there.

The lesson here is: don't... ever... f***... with... Jon Stewart. When he makes fun of you, laugh it off and let it go away. When you publicly get offended by the Daily Show and start slamming him, Stewart's writers will move in for the kill.

Anybody have a link?

I thought Cramer at least held his ground slightly. Though, I don't think it was what NBC intended. He ended up more sympathetic to the audience. Perhaps that was the intent, but somehow I doubt it.

I wonder if those promos disappear.


Also, was it me or was the "I was just explaining these things not condoning them" excuse really, really unbelievable.

obama got killed on a joke the other day. They cut to him saying how he wouldn't allow a bill to go through with earmarks or pork. John said yes he is going to fight to cut all this out. Then the next clip was obama signing the damn bill

Cramer isn't against buy and holding, per se. He just says it's not the way to make the most money, and he's right.

I'm pretty sure that they handed him his ass on the teleprompter issues as well.

Funny is funny.

Thats correct. The best way to make money in the stock market is to be psychic, or possess an abnormal amount of dumb luck.

Again, that's not at all what he's saying. Buying and holding is fine, but you have to constantly research whether or not it's a good idea to hold on to your stocks at all times. People that held on to GM stock all the way down are kicking themselves right now. If you were monitoring your investments, then you would have known that it was a good time to get out instead of holding it all the way to 50 year lows.

I'm not saying that he's 100% right about everything he says, because I think he does have a few things fundamentally wrong. But there is truth in some of the things he says, too. He's not advocating day trading or anything like that.

Now that was funny.

I almost felt sorry for Cramer.

J.S. friggen PWNED him! And this was like history in the making. Cramer sure could use a PR advisor and a handler.

John was honest, forthright and non-accommodating. As it should be in this case.

America has hijacked Free Economy and Capitalism in the name of greed and everyone has to wise up and press the reset button.

Madoff et al can burn at the stake for all I care.

Did he do ANOTHER interview? I saw the one where Stewart had the kittens and puppies on green screen behind Cramer.

All I have seen of this is two and a half minutes into the video in the OP, but did Cramer attack someone else's credibility because they're an entertainer?!?!?!?!

THIS ****ING GUY is making fun of someone else for the kind of programming they produce?

Holy ****balls; he DID do a second interview!

TDS is commonly known as parody news ala SNL, but this interview is television journalism history.

This is as real as it gets. This exchange of ideas is the stuff that scares all the wrong people.

I have to give props to Cramer; there were a million ways he could have done this wrong and ****ed himself, but he chose to be forthright instead of defensive.

Yes, there's a bit of the old cop-out going on, but overall I see and sense two keen minds that will walk away from this experience with a much better understanding of who they are, where they stand in the world, and what their responsibilities to themselves and their Countrymen are in the big picture.

That was great.

Okay, they had me at "Buy Low and Sell DIE."

Ha, the TheStreet interview! Ohhhhhhh my God, he actually tried to claim he wasn't actually condoning it! This is ****ing amazing.

This may be an even more rapid, profound end to a show than when he killed Crossfire.

Now that was an epic beat down.

"The Daily Show" is comedy, but is more true to journalistic ideals than the entire Fox Network. I read somewhere a few months back that more 20 to 30 year olds get news from the Daily Show than any other cable TV source. That's kind of scary, but if all the newspapers go out of business, and Time, Newsweek and US News & World Report follow, than TV blabber is all that will be left.

I wish I was a fly on the wall back at Mizzou. I did three years of grad school in journalism.

Ugh, last night was awful.

Stewart tries too hard and Cramer completely pussed out by not really defending himself.

Bull****. It's funny as hell, but their clip montages are a ****hair from this;

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That says a lot of the lack of intelligence of many 20 to 30 year olds getting their news from a douche nozzle like Stewart.

Really? How did he "try too hard"? And what could Cramer defend?

(Not really trying to play onside because I know next to nothing about economics.)

It was much more attack but Cramer didn't do what Tucker did and fight Stewart at every turn. I think the backpedaling and retreating saves him. I just wonder if he says no more promos.

I love this argument. Comedy/Satire can't be a source for news and if it is it says something about the demographics. It's a laughable argument. It says more about the mainstream media than it does about the demographics the DS reaches. George Stephonomulfugus is one of many people who are employed by main stream networks that shouldn't be. Gone are the Murrow's replaced by wannabes, Bill O, Keith Olberman, etc.

I apologize, I misunderstood. In that case, I have no problem with this. I evaluate everything I have a couple times a year, though I dont necessarily panic after a bad year. It takes a lot for me to trade, but I still at least ask myself why I still own this. (even if you had a great year, then I ask "Is this for real?")

Stewart tries too hard to make himself out to be an expert while also playing the "I'm just a comedian" role if he is ever questioned. On one hand he will admit that there are some very complex financial issues that he doesn't understand, but on the other hand he acts like it is completely ridiculous to place any ounce of blame on American mortgage holders. An issue doesn't get this large and devastating unless many parties are involved and accountable.

Cramer completely pussed out, and I'm not sure why. He could have defended himself by simply saying he has a f'n talk show about stocks and is not Miss Cleo. Hopefully no one is stupid enough to think every individual stock prediction he has will be correct.

Cramer is an extremely intelligent man; the guy went to Harvard Law School, paid for law school by trading his personal account, became a successful journalist while living in his car, and then ran a multi-billion dollar hedge fund before creating a hugely successful brand identity.

His on-air personality is just that...and its easy for Stewart and anyone else to knock his stock-picking ability from where they sit. Try running a show and disclosing all of your opinions on the spot...it can't be easy and plenty of other really smart guys on Wall Street have gotten it wrong (i.e. pretty much everyone except John Paulson and a few others).

BULLSHIT! He has a responsibility and is somewhat no different that Madoff(sp?) IMO.
He's lied to the public and admitted (behind closed doors) that he's manipulated funds ,etc. For MSNBC to paint a picture that Cramer is the stock (In Cramer We Trust) God is utterly stupid and irresponsible when it comes to your company's credibility and brand.

Of course they all may play the stock manipulation game, but JS held his ass accountable for being the "expert" he is. For him to take CEO's word for face value is what ME as a complete novice could do. He's supposed to be the expert that should use the DD and research that I may not know how to do when reporting his OPINIONS.

Some rely on Cramer for insight instead of his circle jerking with corporate CEO's who'd give him the best case scenarios of the respective company(ies).

I applaud Jon Stewart and Cramer can GFH!

:spock:

Are you seriously comparing stealing $50 billion dollars through a decade plus hoax to being wrong on a few stock picks? That's one of the most stunningly stupid quotes I've ever seen on here.

Behind closed doors? It was an interview on his free website. Anyways, that's not the reason Stewart even had him on. It was to put a face on his CNBC attack, and Cramer apparently decided it was better to just sit back and take it rather than fight back and look even more like a rich Wall Street fat cat that normal people demonize.

So would it be better for the public to not have access to his show, including his opinions and updates on stocks, interviews with company management, discussion of trends in the market, etc?

Since he's wrong occassionally and you think he should be off the air, we might as well get rid of WSJ, Barrons, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fortune, Money, etc.

Are you really arguing that the public would be better served if these outlets were no longer around, thus putting retail investors even more in the dark?

I don't think anyone was mad at Cramer being wrong. It's some of the things he's been wrong about while simultaneously knowing the shenanigans contributing to them being wrong.

Well considering he's trusted to be IN THE KNOW... Maybe with his Bear Stearns, Citi and AIG stock picks he told people to buy right before they went under, people may have lost $50B? (worded badly but you get my point).

And yes... I'd rather do away with his show altogether if he's going to be a freaking gimmick that relies on CEO talk rather than DD & research. Other shows seem to have more credibility anyways. So no, they get a pass unless they use the same tactics.

Yes it was "behind closed doors" as he said he would never admit that stuff to the public. Then he tried to cover it up saying that he didn't do that but JS quickly went on to the next scene so asshat before asshat could bury himself even futher.

It was good Cramer STFU or he could've made it worse on himself.

So it wasn't a full mockery of hypocrites night. It was still pretty cool.

No one forced any of the mindless sheep to invest in any of Kramer's recommeded stocks or funds. They chose to take his advice and make the move. There are plenty of Americans that took advice of friends or family they "thought" were well versed in the market. Those same people's investments tanked. Personally, I do not think Kramer has an repsonibility for their losses. It is too typical in American to want to blame our mistakes on somene else. Step up and just admit you should have never made that investment becuase outside of listening to a talking head you did no other reseach and now you are in the hurtlocker.

Bunch fo whining babies that want to complain about this crap. I listen to his show from time to time and any stock he recommends I research on my own and then make my decision on the combined info. It really is not that hard to read and understand the financial statements and see if there are problems with a company. There is plenty of info available if one wants to look.

Isn't that what Cramer is to have done for you :shrug:
I don't even watch the show I'm just speaking on the avg Joe Blow that might take his words as QFT.

He does look at that kind of info but if you ask 5 financial advisors to look at a company balance sheet you are apt to get at least 3 different opinions. I analyze financial statements for my company when a customer needs a large line of credit. I have learned that depending on a person’s risk profile the interpretation of the can be different. Out CFO many times has a slightly differing opinion than what I bring to the table. Both are equally valid we just have a different interpretation. Some people value net equity while another might value the P/E ratio or the if a company is paying dividends. What I am saying is that no one person will be right all the time and it could be in part due to their values or innate risk tolerance.

None can be expected to be right all the time but to take a CEO's interview as your primary research basis takes you out of the expert category. Especially considering the CEO knows the same thing you do on how to manipulate the market.

What CEO would get on there and say "we're going to stink it up this year?"

That's my point.

WTF are you talking about? What makes you think he or anyone else is just talking to a CEO to form their opinion on a stock?

If you think Cramer doesn't do stock research you are a fool. He routinely discusses revenues, profit forecasts, contracts, margins, competitors, etc. Discussions with mgmt are in addition to fundamental research, just like it is for people actually in the industry.

You obviously are just talking out of your ass at this point.

I didn't say he doesn't do DD. Just apparently not enough of it. Letting his emotions get in the way.

Furthermore, are you :hump:ing Cramer (NTTAWWT)? Why are you defending him so blindly when the man has footage of him basically admitting he fudged HIS Followers and how he's done it in the past?

If you admit he does "DD" (i'm not convinced you even know what that is), then why do you continue to say he just talks to CEOs?

This was your last brilliant quote:

So know he DOES do fundamental research on companies? But he doesn't do "enough" because he still gets calls wrong on occasion? Interesting.


Great comeback. Maybe next you'll say my mom smells or something.

I'll defend anyone if they are getting undeservedly bashed. Cramer has a stock opinion show, and he gets some calls right and some calls wrong, just like every single person in the world.

Blaming him for anything in this mess - and comparing him to Madoff LMAO - is absolutely hilarious and backs up the point OmahaChief made about people in this country always looking for someone to blame.

Like I said... I'm speaking of the avg Joe... I don't watch his show anymore.
If you want to argue even though you've been shown a video of the dumb stuff he's said/done then that's on you.
It's called holding him accountable. Not blame.

FWIW: Your mom's. :p

Accountable for picking the wrong stocks or giving a wrong opinion...yes. Accountable for the people that listened to him blindly and lost all their money....no.

Accountable for using emotional attachment (to CEO's words) instead of DD and pumping a BUY BUY BUY to people who listen to him. He admits he made a mistake with his DD... why is it so hard for you guys to admit he made the mistake?

I don't think you will find that I said he never made a mistake. What I have said all along is that the people that blindly followed him are the ones that should take some of that blame themselves. No one forced them into that choice. You seem pretty fired about about this, did Kramer cost you are a family member some serious money?

One thing I would caution you on with DD is that had you done that some DD on Enron before they tanked you would have thought they were a great company. At one of our professional seminars we were handed their financials (not knowing what company they were for) in the months before the collapse and everything looked solid. What we learned is sometimes even the best due dilligence can lead to mistakes. In that case they were cooking the books and who knew but non the less the DD proved to be wrong.

In the end it is the person that is making the decision to buy or sell that is the one that needs to take the fall not some scapegoat even if said scapegoat was wrong. Just as Kramer needs to be held accountable so do the persons making the decision to blindly take his advice.

Let me remind you, as Jon said last night (paraphrased): "You've become the face of this and that isn't fair. It's the network, reporting, industry; not you personally"

Yeah, I just don't see it that way. The people out there that make their decisions based on programs like Cramer's are morons. You can't blame morons for being morons, they just weren't born with the mental faculties. You can, however, take to task those that make their living knowingly manipulating the margin.

So who is "knowingly manipulating the margin" and how?

Do you think Cramer is knowingly giving false information or lying about his stock opinions?

Do you think we should do away with all stock opinion shows, magazines, etc?

Please clue me in if I misunderstood your post.

No, I don't think we should do away with all shows of that nature by any means and I'm not sure how you could have inferred that. BUT, as was so eloquently pointed out by Stewart, it's not a ****ing game. We don't need the bells and whistles and pretty shiny objects that amuse the masses.

Do I think Cramer knowingly gave false information or lied about his opinions? That is kind of a tough one to call. Do I think a hedge fund manager knew EXACTLY how entangled the situation had become due to practices like credit default swapping? Hell yes. Do I think that anyone with that much firsthand knowledge of finance and economics should have seen the conflict of interest created by allowing banks to immediately turn over their mortgages to holding companies to securitize, effectively washing their hands of default risk? Hell yes. So did he purposely lie about his picks? Maybe not. Should he have known that the bottom was going to drop out and big time? Absolutely.

Cramer himself admitted their demographic, or at least their goal demographic, was those that were new to financial markets. Thus my reference to the margin.

There are a few things he does. When he recommends a "Buy" on a stock, he waits a week before he actually buys it (and yes, he does buy it for better or worse at the end of that week). Same thing with a "Sell." He waits.

I think he's pretty transparent about what he recommends, and he isn't doing it for his own portfolio. It's for his charitable trust.

I really don't see how Cramer is any different than the guys on "Fast Money" or "Options Action." They all get stuff wrong. At least Cramer owns up to it when he does.

In hindsight, yeah, he should have known the bottom was going to fall out at some point, and I'm sure he thought it would at some point. But not even Buffett can know for sure what direction the market will turn, and like I said in an earlier post, EVERYONE got this one wrong.

So yeah, Cramer should certainly have known what was going to happen, but you can lump everyone in that group, including almost every investment bank, hedge fund, mutual fund, etc. People should definitely be held accountable at some level, but Cramer is not near the top of my personal list.

It just seems to me that we're kind of picking on Cramer here simply because he makes his calls every night on a public forum. I guess that is his own fault, and he should have expected to take heat when the market turns like this, but I don't it's truly warranted.

Don't get me wrong, he is no where near the top of my list. Just another in a long line...

As far as the market turning, many people have been voicing their fears since the late 90's. Any insider had to know. You and I could have never known the extent because most of these activities were off balance sheet. The people that run the various financial market instruments knew though. They were so leveraged and their debt instruments were so entangled, that anyone on the inside had to know that one blow would bring the straw house down.

Even if he doesn't know all the finance goings, Jon Stewart is a good and fair critic of network TV. And I think that's what the interview stressed for me. An honest discussion about the role of the media and journalism.

Its wasnt exactly honest because Stewart only attacked this issue after guys from CNBC dared to speak out against Obama financial policies. All of his criticisms of the network are valid, to be sure, but all of them could have been made months and even years before now. It wasnt until Santelli and Cramer dared criticize Obama that this was raised. That isnt honest criticism, thats reactionary gotcha-ism to change the subject.

And it wasnt exactly fair because if this was pointed out to Stewart, that he was essentially playing an attack dog for the administration while criticizing the ethics of others, he would play his game about being a comedy show and not being part of media or journalism. The clown outfit tends to come off and on whenever it suits him.

I like Stewart for the most part, but this is one of his more blatant examples of wanting to have it both ways.

Boris, your comments make me think that it would have been really better if someone had checked CNBC before this.

And on the note of business and journalism, here are a few people commenting on the issue.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/mo...13032009&seg=2

he's creepy

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i remember when they used to do comedy on that show, and not just shill for the left

i love meltdowns

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Of course it would have. There are very valid points to be made, many of which were made in the interview.

But if this was an issue that bothered Stewart even half as much as he acted like it did, there were plenty of times to raise these points. Such as when CNBC began running the In Cramer We Trust promos that seemed to so outrage Jon, just to throw out such an example.

Instead, there wasnt a peep about any of this until it could be used to deflect criticism CNBC made against Obama policies. That kind of transparency tends to defeat the purpose, assuming people actually pay attention.

Sadly, few do, so we get things like Robert Gibbs snickering about the interview, even though Cramer was pretty pro-Obama until his recent criticism.

Worse yet, picking on CNBC is like tapping the head of the fat kid in duck duck goose. Why not respond to the Warren Buffet criticism of Obama policies, just to name someone with a little more stature? Or if the financial issues and deception really concerned Stewart that much, where are the clips of Barney Frank propping up Freddie and Fannie the way Cramer did with Bear Sterns before it collapsed? Doesnt he have more influence in whats going on than Cramer or anyone else at CNBC?

How could someone possibly be more outraged by the coverage of a TV network than they are by the people who helped form the policies that got us to this point? Because its a handy way to deflect and change the subject.

Pay no attention to these other issues, lets focus on the booyah guy from Mad Money. And watch your back, Suze Orman, we havent forgotten you.

Way to parrot what the right wing talking heads have been saying. Do you have any original thoughts of your own on the subject?

BS. They were in bed with these wall streeters and were told by the CEO that this is gospel and reported that as gospel to the public. No questioning the motives of the CEO? fact checking? telling the public this info comes from the CEO, take it with a grain of salt? Did CNBC ever pause and think maybe, just maybe the CEO's were talking to them only because they were interested in seeing their stock price go up and were feeding you BS?

Lot of great points in this thread. A couple of prefaces. I am a huge fan of Jon Stewart. I am a TOTAL layman when it comes to the economy. So be nice...:)

I thought Cramer came off as well as he could in the unedited version of the interview. I really think he deserves kudos for sacking up and facing Stewart and the angry public face to face. Whether you agree with his politics/agenda or not Stewart is a formidable foe. American's want someone to blame and Cramer (perhaps unwittingly) has put his face right in the middle of it.

I think stewart's point is an entertainment show about money is a dangerous dangerous thing. Seems he was calling for them to be held to a much higher standard, to be more like investigative reporters. They do possess the knowledge, experience and access to really dig deep into financial matters.

Cramer's point is that if he did that he would no longer have an audience.

Does a financial show (even one intended more as entertainment) have a greater responsibility to investigate deeper into it's content than a satirical show? Yes. But, really, this is hardly the problem with the economy. The economy is in the toilet because the checks and balances in place to safeguard it went terribly awry. Something is broken there and it has little to do with the average Joe's investments based on anything they gleened incorrectly from financial shows. We have to figure out how SO MANY shady, economy killing deals were able to move through the financial systems without red flags being raised and safeguard against them in the future. Someone HAD to know this would happen eventually...

So in the end, I think Stewart is right but really barking up the wrong tree. Average Joe's were going to lose their shirts regardless of anything CNBC recommended.

Way to completely eviscerate his argument by musing that some people may have said the same thing elsewhere. :thumb:

"Objects having mass exert a gravitational force proportional to its mass and inversely proportional to the distance between it and the object it is exerting its force upon."

Blisteringly unoriginal. Not in the least untrue.

The center of the issue is that Jon is just a hipper, funnier, Andy Rooney. Andy has made his bones off being disgruntled at ****ling [edit: Guess I'll go with 'mildly distracting" because someone decided that n!gg is inapproprriate even in the instance of n!ggling] aspects of culture and responding with nothing more constructive that "did you ever notice? . . "

Jon has all sorts of observations on how other people are doing things wrong, Begala and Carlson don't debate the right way, Cramer doesn't talk about finances the right way, Jimmy Dean puts too many chocolate chips in their pancake on a stick. But he's got nothing to offer beyond "you're doing it wrong and you're a dick."

There are laws against them possessing any more knowledge than the average person. Just because someone works on Wall Street or on CNBC doesn't (or shouldn't, if no one is breaking the law) give them the right to more information about stocks and business than anyone else has access to.

I don't know how much more clear Stewart could have been in his excoriation of "Crossfire".

He didn't say they were debating wrong, he said that they weren't debating at all, and that they didn't have an honest exchange of ideas or a civilized discourse because everything turned into yelling talking points and not analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of their relative positions.

Moreover, due to the emptiness of these constructed "debates" politicians could use a forum like Crossfire to disseminate more talking points without having to answer an honest question due to the dissolution of true Q&A and give and take, which is why he said they were tools of the pols, because people need a forum like Crossfire to "hold people's feet to the fire" and Crossfire was just theater.

I get that. To back peddle a little, isn't the information that's (as you say) available to everyone easier for them to obtain? For example, I doubt I could have gotten a meeting with the CEO of Bear Stearns. Further, I don't even know where to look for access to companies' financial reports, assuming I could understand them. That's kind of what I was getting at...