I just watch it on john stewart website and I gotta say.. it was pretty stupid. John Stewart was insinuating that wall street is some giant fraud and traders somehow control the market at the expense of investors. Stewart was saying everybody involved with wall street should have seen the financial mess. Completely retarted. I would expect that from john stewart who has no idea what how wall street works but Cramer seemed like more of an idiot. I would have said "John, you're a complete moron and have NO idea what you're talking about."
Exactly right. But it was clear that Cramer was scared out of his mind, or heavily sedated on valium. He reminded me of a scared child being scolded by his irate dad. Especially when Jon said he wanted to see Jim do a serious show and remain calm. Cramer's response -- "I can do that. How bout if I try that?". Are you kiddin me Jim!? Grow a pair dude!!
You nailed it with this single comment. And the sooner people recognize this fact the better off they are. An intelligent person with an open mind can still watch CNBC just as long as they are aware that they are watching a 24 hour infomercial.
Having spent the past 12+ yrs of my life on wall street (modeling, analysis and trading). I think you missed the point of Jon Stewart's argument. Let me get a transcript now. Stewart said, "The financial news industry is not just guilty of a sin of omission but a sin of commission." That's the whole point of his thesis. Compare the questioning of Wall street practices by the financial news mdia, and say Clinton's decision to raise taxes. There were far more objective reporting on the political front. Often the political news will have some opposition leader on (say Newt or Bob Dole), saying that raise taxes is a horrible idea, etc, etc. With the usage of leverage increase in Wall street firms rising, why didn't CNBC put up a graph showing the increase? Why didn't Bloomberg have economists on saying that "an over leveraged credit industry is akin to a time bomb"? That's the point. Seriously economists tend to be "negative" and also "boring". Also, Stewart did not put down all of wall street. Towards end he mentioned "a lot the ppl on wall street are smart and hard working, and they got f*cked by this as well." It is absolutely true. The point of CNBC's duplicity in the whole fiasco reminded me of one conversation I had, about 2 years after I joined an investment bank. I asked an equity strategist, some what casually, why he didn't rate the stocks "sell" if he knows those stocks will go down. And he just looked at me, "You don't want to do that, if you rate a stock a sell, it's trading volume will go down." The underlying theme is "our pay are all driven by higher trading volume, why the hell would I want to lower that?" And he is absolutely right. It is the *exactly* the same thing with the Financial News industry. They want to report the "rosy" stock markets, that CEO are pseudo-Gods, and "Star Traders" are stuff of legends. Then more viewers would tune in, and higher advertising rates, and higher income for the "on-air personalities". It is shilling for the financial industry, not "news" or any serious "analysis". It is like Casinos running classes on Craps, and parading "million-dollar Craps Legends" before the new players. This is no different. But at least at Casinos, you know the guy is shilling, not under guise of some "independent serious news or analysis".
It was pretty much an ambush and I don't think Cramer expected such a harsh criticism, valid or not. Now nothing is wrong to try to be entertaining on a financial show. After all try to talk about stocks for an hour and see if your audience doesn't get bored. This is television not radio!! Cramer's problem is being wrong too often times. And why would anyone expect the network to criticise the system that gives them their living??? This is a PR program not independent public radio! Not to mention Stewart assumed that the reporters on CNBC knew this was coming, which was clearly not the case. But even if they knew, are they allowed to ring the alarm bell long before the market start to collapse? CNBC is owned by big corporation, they are supposed to hammer home the corporate message. Not excusing them, just putting things in perspective....
I think the problem with CNBC is not that they lack in-depth analysis, is that they failed in the supposed role of a "serious investment advice" medium. Let me make a weird comparison. Let's say the Political media is exactly like the Financial media. So when Obama announced "tax increases on Americans making over $250k year", the Political media would all go "oh yeah, this is great! This will be a great push on American economy!" And interviews with Obama administration will be like "So this tax increase is great. Do you think unemployment rate will go down to 4% or 3%? By the way, did you enjoy having Stevie Wonder play in the White House?" Everyone, liberal or conservative, will think this would be an outrage, right? It is the media's responsibility to bring in critical analysis, to have the republican opposition on, and saying that "increase income taxes will be killing the economy." This is exactly where the Financial media failed. When the CEO of AIG goes on CNBC, they do not bring in an analyst or economist, and say "you know, AIG under wrote 80% of all credit default swaps, isn't that a ticking time bomb?" Where is medium used for critical analysis? I mean, the CEO of GM went on 2007, and CNBC did not ask a SINGLE question about declining auto sales. And instead, the viewer just see "information" like "GM predicts x% increase in sales and yy% reduce in costs, bring in $zzB in profits by 2009". I think that's Jon Stewart's point.
Cramer was owned !!!! that was one of the best financial interviews i've ever see, jon stewart pulled no punches and immediately went to work on cramer..every round was a 10-8. I LOVE THIS GUY JON STEWART!!!! HE'S GOT BALLS.
Stewart is just a populist selling out to the public, just what you would expect from a comedian. So what that CNBC and Cramer didnt see the crisis coming, the bulk of the capitalistic world didnt as well. The global securities market didnt as well, worlwide governments didnt as well. Informed investors with reputations of killing the Sp500 didnt as well. Stewart didnt as well. Its like berating a baseball player for not being good enough to be in the hall of fame