CNBC's ticking time bomb Jim "Mad Money" Cramer lashed out at the Federal Reserve again on January 2 for not cutting interest rates. This time he suggesting the Fed was intentionally doling out punishment to reckless investors.
"I have to tell you that I look at this situation and I say to myself, ‘They [the Federal Reserve] want it. They want a recession.'" Cramer said on CNBC's January 2 "Squawk on the Street." "They're Puritans. They want to punish the people who were reckless in their eyes and the punishment has still not finished being meted out."
Cramer was called into a discussion about the Fed with CNBC's David Faber and "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernan.
"I don't know whether to pound the Fed some more because we're down from 13,800 where they only went [with a cut] a quarter [point] or I don't know whether to admit maybe they were right to worry about the dollar and inflation," Kernan said. "I want to know and I want it to become clear in the next three months."
Cramer told viewers the Fed needed to be criticized "more than ever" for "fiddling while Rome was burning."
"I have to tell you, I think the incrementalism is probably the most reckless strategy I've come across," Cramer said.
Kernan asked Cramer if the Fed were "consensus building gradualism between academics sipping white wine with their finger up in the air. Right?"
"It's a Chablis thing," Cramer said. "They probably use Robert Parker [a wine critic] as their best indicator of what to do here."
Later the same day, Cramer compared the Federal Reserve to the Soviet Union.
"[T]hey're [the Fed] not your friend, so stop trying to find ways to make them your friend. They're your sworn enemy," Cramer said during the "Stop Trading" segment of CNBC's January 2 "Street Signs." "They remind me of the Soviet Union during the period of Cold War."
