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Originally Posted by Chiefless
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. |
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."