Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer

[Alex]

Yes, but the type of overt manipulation highlighted by the clips shown had little to do with the bubble caused by cheap money that put us in our current situation.

In fact, if anything, it was the hedge fund short selling manipulation that Stewart highlighted can be said to have ultimately exposed it all as a house of cards.

I'm not saying that fraud, deception, and manipulation didn't happen but would say it was on the fringe of things and focusing on it to nearly the exclusion of all else (and mislabeling other things as it) leads us down the wrong path.

You really can't be complicit in self-delusion beyond certain initial steps. And as much as we'd like to think there were a bunch of bankers sitting in executive suites rubbing their hands with glee and saying "I can't believe we're getting away with ****ing everything up like this, it'll be fun and then the government will bail us out, cackle, cackle, cackle" I don't think it is real.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

Yes, but the type of overt manipulation highlighted by the clips shown had little to do with the bubble caused by cheap money that put us in our current situation.

No, but I think it has a lot to do with what's making it difficult to get back out. It's the kind of meta-market gamesmanship that's fueling the negative feedback loop of, "The Dow is down, which means the economy's weak, so analysts practically incite panic, which causes the Dow to drop more which is more proof that the economy is weak and that Obama's worthless, which will cause the Dow to drop more, which means the economy's still weak......."

The specific types of hedge fund games may not have anything directly to do with the money market fiasco, but it is endemic of the fact that as a whole, investors, and therefore people reporting on investors, and therefore the people watching those reports, are far too, well, invested in looking at meta-investing as the be all and end all of economic opportunity and health. Who cares if a company is actually doing useful work or not, it's all about whether it APPEARS to. Companies are rewarded for short term thinking that nets their investors a quick buck on the stock market instead of for long term health of the company. So when any one part of that fantasy shows weakness, the whole thing shudders, even when it's not directly related.

So maybe Cramer can't be blamed for the unregulated overvaluation of the money market. But his world is barely one step removed, in my opinion. And, thanks to his visibility, it's something the average Joe can relate to (or thinks they can relate to) far better than the world of the money market into which they have no visibility. So I don't mind it being used as a bit of a stand in, because the principles are close enough to get the point across.