Jim Cramer

When Jon Stewart eviscerated Jim Cramer for not doing a better job of warning Americans about the looming financial crisis, the "Mad Money" host should have brought videos and transcripts of some of his highly-publicized rants in order to thoroughly disprove the comedian's premise.

In fact, as former investigative reporter turned actor and producer Dan Gifford revealed at Big Hollywood Sunday, Cramer should have wiped the floor with Stewart and put an end to all the CNBC bashing.

For instance, the "Mad Money" host could have shared with Stewart's audience this tirade from August 2007 (video embedded right):

The ongoing battle between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer took an interesting turn Tuesday when NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said that it was absurd for anyone to blame the financial crisis on CNBC.

Speaking at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit, Zucker defended the financial news network saying, "I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done."

Zucker also stood up for Cramer:

Here's a headline I bet you didn't expect to see at one of America's leading newspapers:

Don't Blame Jim Cramer

To be perfectly honest, I rarely agree with Richard Cohen, but on St. Patrick's Day 2009, the Washington Post columnist wrote truths virtually no mainstream media member has dared utter since the "Mad Money" host first left the Obama reservation:

The Washington Post signaled its liberalism by putting Jon Stewart’s bullying interview with Jim Cramer on the front page Saturday under the headline "Stewart’s Time to Channel Our Anger." (Who is "our"? He certainly isn’t channeling conservative anger.) Howard Kurtz totally dropped any pretense of objectivity and obsequiously painted Stewart in glittery gold:

Jon Stewart has amassed a passionate following over the years as a sharp-edged satirist, the man who punctures the balloons of the powerful with a caustic candor that reporters cannot muster...Stewart morphed into a populist avenging angel this week, demanding to know why CNBC and its most manic personality, Jim Cramer, failed to warn the public about the risky Wall Street conduct that triggered the financial crisis.

Kurtz, who has drawn some liberal arrows over the years for his willingness to admit liberal tilt when it’s incredibly obvious (like Obama’s coverage in the 2008 campaign), failed in this story to consider that Stewart wasn’t an "avenging angel" for populists, but a transparent shill for liberal Obama-lovers. He also failed to consider that this same Jon Stewart took his mockery to the other side of the fence, mocking "doom and gloom" reporting on the economy last May and calling CNN's Ali Velshi the "hairless prophet of doom."

As much as the 2008 presidential election was a battle between socialism and capitalism in America, so too is the highly-publicized feud between Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and CNBC's Jim Cramer.

Even their last names begin with the same letters as the economic philosophies they're defending.

Of course, the press coverage of the main event -- Cramer appearing on "The Daily Show" Thursday to face his accuser -- is also emblematic of this war with the liberal media cheering for Stewart, and those on the right clearly in the "Mad Money" host's corner.

The confrontation between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Mad Money," on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" in which the latter delivered a pathetically poor performance was a hot topic on cable and in the blogosphere last week. Everywhere, that is, except on MSNBC where the hosts were strangely silent about this encounter. Were the MSNBC hosts under orders to keep silent about this since the parent NBC company didn't want to harm the credibility and ratings of a CNBC host? According to TVNewser, this was likely the case:

A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today. In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn't sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. "I enjoyed it thoroughly," the Press Secretary said.

Could this be a sign of things to come?

Now that CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli has mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight after his criticism of President Barack Obama's mortgage proposal in February and now that CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer has been marginalized after his lackluster appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on March 12, could the new target of the Obama machine and the left and their accomplices in the media be CNBC "The Kudlow Report" host Larry Kudlow?

James Rainey, a columnist for The Los Angeles Times, set his sights on Kudlow in his March 13 column. Kudlow's show is one of the last vestiges of pro-free market capitalism left at a time when populism has become the theme of the day.

Rainey's column, headlined as a critique of CNBC focused on two personalities - Kudlow and Cramer, even though Cramer has been raked over the coals since he made his March 3 remarks calling Obama's policies "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

What's a little salt on the wound after a seemingly humiliating performance by CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer on Comedy Central's March 12 "The Daily Show?" At least that's the way White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs acted when he took the opportunity to comment on last night's "Daily Show" during his March 13 press briefing.

Gibbs was asked what he thought of the interview, where "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart called CNBC "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst." Gibbs apparently appreciated Stewart's hyperbolic attacks on CNBC and Cramer.

"The president and I talked earlier in the day yesterday about watching it," Gibbs said. "I forgot to e-mail him to remind him it was on, so I don't know if he's seen it. I enjoyed it thoroughly."

Gibbs praised "The Daily Show" host for handling an "uncomfortable" situation and took a jab at CNBC's decision not to post it on CNBC.com.

It was supposed to be a moment of high drama - when Comedy Central "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart faced off with CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.  But it wasn't a fight, it was more of a beating. The "comedian," as Cramer recently called him, repeatedly bashed the financial network and its star host in a segment called "Brawl Street."

The week-long feud began when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli canceled his scheduled appearance on the March 5 "The Daily Show," which led to a scathing attack on the entire CNBC network, and Cramer taking a few jabs in return. Finally, the "Mad Money" host sat down for an interview with Stewart on his March 12 broadcast. Initially, Cramer was apologetic for his the way the entire financial crisis had gone down from a media point-of-view.

"I think that everyone could have come in under criticism because we all should have seen it more," Cramer said. "I mean, admittedly, this is a terrible one and everybody got it wrong. I got a lot of things wrong, because I think it was a one in a million shot."

Jim Cramer just keeps paying the price for his heresy. Ever since his March 3 remarks calling Obama's policies "greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president," the CNBC "Mad Money" host has been under attack. First it was the back-and-forth with the White House, then he was skewered by comedian Jon Stewart. Now CNN and a former high-ranking public official have targeted him.

Cramer, who is set to appear on Comedy Central's "Daily Show" on March 12, was featured in a segment of that day's CNN "American Morning" reporting on a video he did for TheStreet.com in 2006, in which he explained how the hedge fund he once managed would manipulate stock prices.

"You know, a lot of times when I was short and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures," Cramer said in the three year-old video. "Similarly, or if I were long, and I would want to make things a little bit rosy, I would go in and take a bunch of stocks and make sure that they're higher and maybe commit five million in capital to it and I could affect it."

The good folks in the Obama administration and in the media took on the wrong foe with Jim Cramer, for the outspoken CNBC personality struck back at his ill-informed and economically-challenged critics Monday in a fashion those that have watched him for years have grown to expect.

In his self-titled "Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart," the "Mad Money" host: referred to the current White House as "exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies"; accurately exposed the New York Times' Frank Rich and comedian Jon Stewart for cherry-picking snippets of his on-air recommendations in order to discredit him, and; complimented the civility of folks on the right declaring, "I always love anyone from Fox on the team because they are fierce in their defense with much less gratuitous slamming."

How delicious. Here are some of the highlights:

In today's Pot Calling the Kettle Black moment, Bill Maher thinks CNBC's Jim Cramer isn't helping by suggesting that President Barack Obama is Lenin.

This coming from a man who built an entire weekly television program on HBO savagely attacking George W. Bush and anyone associated with his Administration.

Despite the obvious hypocrisy, on Friday's "Real Time," as Maher was talking to CNBC's Erin Burnett about economic and financial coverage on her network, he actually said the following (video embedded below the fold, h/t NB reader Al Holloway):

Shortly after it was revealed the Obama administration is engaging in a coordinated media attack on Rush Limbaugh, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted that he's having fun battling the conservative talk radio host.

Gibbs is apparently also enjoying the sparring with CNBC's Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli.

Anything to distract the nation from a deteriorating economy and the obvious lack of a plan to do anything about it I guess.

As reported by the Hill Thursday:

Here we go again - another Obama administration/media personality feud in the works.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has no problem addressing media critics of President Barack Obama - even on an individual basis. Since Obama was sworn in as president, Gibbs has addressed criticism from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, CNBC mercantile exchange floor reporter Rick Santelli and now CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.

During the March 3 White House press briefing, Tom Costello of NBC News asked Gibbs to respond to remarks from Cramer, who was described as "not a conservative," made on NBC's March 3 "Today" show that he "thought the president's policies, his agenda had contributed to the greatest wealth destruction he's ever seen by a president."

Although an admitted Barack Obama supporter during last year's campaign, CNBC's Jim Cramer has certainly changed his view concerning our 44th president.

On Tuesday's "Today" show, the outspoken "Mad Money" host said: we have "an agenda in this country now that I would regard as being a radical agenda";  Obama's just announced budget "put a level of fear in this country that I have not seen ever in my life," and; "This is the most, greatest wealth destruction I've seen by a president."

He also called Timothy Geithner "an invisible treasury secretary," and expressed hope that the next time he goes to Capitol Hill "he doesn't throw the drowning man the anvil like he did the last time he spoke" (video and transcript below the fold, file photo):

It was news media conventional wisdom during the 2008 presidential campaign: the worse the economy, the better it was for Democrat candidate prospects. But now that they have the legislative and executive branches and the burden of actually governing, that advantage is slowly being chipped away.

CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, who first starting connecting that perhaps a Democrat-controlled federal government might not be the best thing for the United States earlier this year, gave something of a downbeat rant on Feb. 2 about Obama's handling of the economy so far.

"Until the Obama administration starts listening, until they start paying attention to what you're watching - to the stock market, until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans - then all I can give you is caution," Cramer said on his March 2 broadcast.

Everything is wonderful and peachy-keen in Obamaland if you rely on the reporting on the front page of The New York Times. Just ask CNBC's Jim Cramer. On his Feb. 12 program the "Mad Money" host dealt with the $789 billion stimulus package.

"Now if you were to believe what's in the papers, holy cow - except for the funny papers - you would think this package was wonderful," Cramer said he said of the reported agreement congressional leaders had reached on ironing out the package's details.

Cramer was referring to a front-page article by Richard W. Stevenson in the Feb. 12 Times, which gave a glowing account of this as a victory in the early stages of the Obama administration.

"Look at the front page of The New York Times today," Cramer said. "I love this one, ‘Measuring a Victory,' by this guy, Stevenson. He's a famous guy, you know? He's not Robert Louis Stevenson, he's Richard W. Stevenson. He writes - it's like a comedy routine - ‘It is a quick sweet victory for the new president and potentially a historic one.' Who edits this B.S.?"

With all the populist sentiment generated from the economic slowdown by politicians, CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer is seeing eerie similarities with the comments of President Barack Obama and the words of a communist revolutionary.

Cramer, appearing on MSNBC's Feb. 2 "Morning Joe," drew comparisons between remarks between the first head of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, and Obama. Obama criticized Wall Street's moneymaking on Jan. 30, when he said there would be a time "for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now's not that time. And that's a message that I intend to send directly to them."

Cramer said that was similar to Lenin's writings. "Let me tell you something, we heard Lenin," Cramer said. "There was a little snippet last week that was, ‘Now is not the time for profits.' Look - in Lenin's book, ‘What Is to Be Done?' is simple text of what I always though was for the communists, it was remarkable to hear very similar language from ‘What Is to Be Done?' which is we have no place for profits."

Between Election 2008 and the early moments of the Obama administration, it was assumed a new New Deal was coming complete with massive infrastructure projects. But, now the stimulus package is so full of other things even some of the most unlikely news outlets have noticed.

In an amazing moment of clarity, resembling the end of a Hardy Boys novel after Frank and Joe solved a mystery, CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer and MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews questioned the meager infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill that passed in the House of Representatives on Jan. 28 by a 244-188 margin, without a single Republican vote during "Hardball" that night.

Matthews asked Cramer if the stimulus spending included in the House version of the bill would be "enough boost" for the economy.

Like him or not, this time he has a valid point.

CNBC rabble-rouser and "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer questioned the merits of Timothy Geithner, President Barack Obama's Treasury Secretary-designate, and told viewers on CNBC's Jan. 22 "Street Signs" that, had he been in Geithner's shoes, he'd face criminal prosecution. 

"I happen to have a meeting with my lawyers just to discuss this - with my battalion of lawyers, the $2,000-a-hour gang - and you know, they would say if it was Cramer, I would be prosecuted, maybe criminally prosecuted," Cramer said. "And my lawyers were somewhat shocked that on Chris Matthews I said it was OK, given the fact they said Geithner better get himself the best lawyer in town."

The proposed automaker bailout has a big stamp on it that says "union-built," but the news media hasn't noticed.

Over the past month, accusations have been flying against several Southern senators who oppose a $14 billion bailout for the beleaguered big three automakers and support the the alternative of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. These senators, critics say, are representing the interests of foreign automakers that donate heavily to their campaigns. But what has been largely ignored is the other side of the equation - the influence of the United Auto Workers (UAW) on the members of Congress that voted for the bailout. 

According to campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics Web site OpenSecrets.org, when broken down by how members of Congress voted, for the 2008 election cycle the UAW gave more than eight times as much in campaign cash to members that voted for the bailout than those that voted against it -- $1.14 million to proponents versus just $136,500 that voted against it.

Last week the Business & Media Institute released its annual Top 10 list of the worst economic myths the media spread in 2008. The list was broad, ranging from “killer tomatoes,” to the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the death of capitalism.

But it was myth number 2 “Welcome to 1929: Great Depression II” that touched a nerve with Cliff Mason, senior writer for Mad Money, because of its criticism of CNBC’s Jim Cramer. By the way, Mason is also Cramer’s nephew according to the disclosure at the end of his bio. 

On Dec. 12, Mason wrote:

Superhero economist and top-notch investor John Maynard Keynes famously told one of his critics, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

On Mad Money we happen to share that same philosophy. And unfortunately, it's still something of a radical position.

On Thursday, the Business and Media Institute released its list of "The Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths of 2008." Jim is mentioned in three of them, but it's myth number 2, "the news media drew hundreds of parallels to the Depression, despite economic data that is not even close," that reminded me of that Keynes quotation.

Do as I say, not as I do.

That appears to be Jim Cramer's philosophy. The CNBC "Mad Monday" host told NBC "Today" show viewers Dec. 2 that comparisons between the current economy and the Great Depression were inappropriate.

 "[T]hat's got to be taken off the table," Cramer told "Today" host Meredith Vieira. "There have been enough things done by this government to absolutely preclude that. I, myself, do not want to use that term ever again on the ‘Today' show even to compare it. Things are very different. We do need help from Europe; we need help from China. But take the Great Depression talk off the table. That is scare tactics."

 "I'm reluctant to start talking like that," Cramer said of describing the current recession as "the longest since World War II," as Vieira did. "I've adopted a ‘just the facts, ma'am,' approach, kind of a little bit more of a ‘Dragnet' approach, so to speak. Because when we give those characterizations what happens is we can affect things."

He was right. Comparisons to the Great Depression are way off the mark - Cramer makes them enough, he ought to know.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, and CNBC's Jim Cramer has a drastic measure that probably won't sit well with border enforcement proponents.

On Nov. 5 the host of CNBC's "Mad Money" detailed for his audience how he would save the economy serving under Democratic President-elect Barack Obama - under the facetious assumption he could be SEC chairman, Federal Reserve chairman and Treasury secretary.

Cramer's plan involves the government bailing out the big three U.S. automakers - General Motors (NYSE:GM), Chrysler (NYSE:DAI) and Ford (NYSE:F) - with a plan similar to the bailout of American International Group (NYSE:AIG), which was rescued earlier this year. Cramer would also give tax breaks to private enterprises that aid in the country's transition from petroleum-based fuels to natural gas.

On what should be the crowning day of his professional career, one hopes for his sake that Paul Krugman wasn't watching Morning Joe.  For news of his economics Nobel was met by the crew with ridicule that even Mika Brzezinski couldn't resist.  Andrea Mitchell tried to uphold the Krugman honor, but—as seen in the screencap—even she couldn't suppress a smile at the award's arrant absurdity.

Joe Scarborough piqued Mika's curiosity with his teasing of the news, while guest Jim Cramer saw the award as confirmation that America is well on the way to socialism.

View video here.

The shock and awe of the financial market meltdown is just beginning according to CNBC star Jim Cramer.

Cramer on CNBC's Sept. 29 "Mad Money" cautioned viewers about the current market. His advice - do nothing because there's more pain to come if no rescue plan makes it out of Congress. As he put it: "sit on your hands."

"Only those stocks that are sure enough to pull the trigger on until we get to Dow 8,200 ... I said if the plan failed - only those you should be looking at - looking at," Cramer said. "Today's 777-point drop was just the beginning. Now is not the time to put your money at risk, it's the time to protect your nest egg."

Cramer recommended only stocks of companies that didn't need to borrow money in an environment with tough credit and sold products that would still be in demand during a bad economy - a very narrow spectrum of stocks. Otherwise, he told viewers to put their money in FDIC-insured banking accounts.

The theory that bailout legislation recently defeated in the House of Representatives would make money for the federal government has been propagated by the financial media. But according to a recent report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a profit is unlikely.

The September 2008 report from the IMF stated the chances of the government recouping anything more than just a fraction of the bailout costs is unlikely. Alex Patelis, head of international economics at Merrill Lynch, explained the report and cited history as an indicator on CNBC's Sept. 29 "Squawk on the Street."

"What you find in the IMF report is of course that banking crises happen all the time," Patelis said. "If you look at the history of banking crises - that on average they cost about 13 percent of GDP to the government, both in terms of direct recapitalization costs, but also lost revenue."

Notes on Friday night coverage of the Wall Street bail out:

On the NBC Nightly News, the always hyperbolic Jim Cramer saw “Great Depression II” avoided by the rescue effort, anchor Brian Williams raised 9/11 as he contended “this was the kind of jittery week in New York a lot of people had to go back to 9/11 to remember how they felt then,” prompting an “oh, wow” from CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, and Williams passed along how “a Democratic politico said to me this week, if the Democrats do their job, they'll make this 'fundamentals of the economy' quote to McCain what 'mission accomplished' was to President Bush.”

ABC's World News brought up Iraq as David Muir referred to how a man in Manhattan “asked today what about the more than $600 billion already spent on Iraq?” Muir also read an e-mail: “Why make the little people bail out these companies?” Of course, the “little people” won't since they barely or don't pay any income tax. One-third of those who file pay nothing or get money back while the bottom 50 percent ($32,000 down), who earn 12 percent of the total income, pay less than 3 percent of taxes collected. The top 25 percent ($65,000 up) pay 86 percent and the top 1 percent ($389,000) pay 40 percent, so maybe the wealthier will get something for all they put in.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" September 8, Jim Cramer took a shot at owner of The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch, in the midst of talking about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac takeover:

I read The Wall Street Journal, sorry, The Fox Street Journal. When is Murdoch going to put his positive right wing implant on left wing journalists? ... When is Murdoch going to broom the Spartacus workers union?

As for Fannie and Freddie, Cramer told the hosts of the September 8 broadcast that "We had a laissez-faire attitude. Now we are going to have the greatest bureaucracy in history created by Republicans. I'm an agent of change," Cramer said sarcastically.

Later in the segment, Cramer joked that the Democratic Party were "Bolsheviks" quipping, "There. How's that for biased media?"

CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer had been on a streak of demonstrating positive free-market behavior. He had criticized the government's handling of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He even gave the media grief for overanalyzing the oil market fluctuations.

But on the August 27 "Mad Money," Cramer bucked his that trend and called for higher taxes for top income earners. On his "Mad Mail" segment, a n e-mailer asked Cramer if Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on incomes higher than $250,000 and redistribute the money to lower income earners would be good for the economy.

"If Obama puts more money in the hands of the majority of the consumers in this country (who make less than $250,000), won't that be a big push for the economy, and in turn for stocks?" the viewer, "Laurence in Iowa," asked.