I've seen a number of people making some variant of the claim that Jon Stewart is the only one brave enough to stand up to the financial journalists who helped get us into this mess.
This is purest poppycock. Jim Cramer had no influence over the twin manias that afflicted America in the last ten years: the madness of homebuyers for ever more expensive houses, and the madness of bankers for buying bonds based on those homes. Jim Cramer did not persuade the Asian savers to pour moronic amounts of capital into oversaturated American markets. He did not talk up MBS or CDOs to any level that could be vaguely said to have meaningfully increased the amount of leverage in the system. If you want a television host, or network, to blame all of our troubles on, you'd do better to cast your ire on Home and Garden Television, and Flip This House. They're the ones who told Americans, over and over and over and over, that it was possible to get rich by installing granite countertops.
Jim Cramer ran a show on trading. You can say it might have been nice if he'd run a show on financial regulatory theory, but there's no reason to think that he would be any good it it--the guy's a trader, not a regulator, not a crack investigator. The skills that make someone a good trader, like a short attention span and an appetite for risk, are not what makes someone good at economic theory or managing regulation. We lost precisely nothing, as a society, when he decided to tout stocks instead of take a dive into public policy.
Individuals, of course, did lose something by following his advice. I'm sure a number of his viewers stuck with Bear and regretted it. On the other hand, I'm sure a number of his viewers sold out of the stock market in October on his advice and saved themselves a bundle. Do you know whether he has cost viewers more than he made them? I tend to suspect he has, but I have no actual data on which to base that conclusion, only a general belief that ordinary investors can't beat the market and shouldn't try.
No, neither Jim Cramer nor CNBC created this mess. They focus mostly on stocks, and though people tend to think of the stock markets as synonomous with the financial system, they just haven't had much to do with the current problems. And thank God, really. I'd rather not hand over the responsibility for the US financial system, or even my retirement account, to a guy who goes on camera to bite the heads off of plastic bulls.
The problem with Jim Cramer is the problem with the Jonas Brothers: what he does simply isn't much good, for all that people seemingly have a large appetite to consume it. And he encourages people to pursue a destructive activity, trading their own portfolios, when most economic research shows they'd be better off in an index fund.
But this is a minor sideshow. Going after Jim Cramer is like trying to fix your marriage by getting new drapes.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Sweet strawman, but no one is really going after Cramer. Even Stewart went out of his way to say his problem was with CNBC as a whole and not specifically Cramer.
I agree with you on Cramer, and Jon Stewart is a pompous buffoon, rather than merely a funny man. What is the destructive activity that the Jonas Brothers encourage? They're annoying, but the only harmful thing I can think of is that they encourage excessive use of hair products, a problem Jim Cramer does not have.
Is anyone else besides me mad that Lizzie McGuire never resolved the unrequited love of her best friend before she went off the air?
Regardles of whether Jon Stewart made some legitimate criticisms (he did), the whole lefty crusade against CNBC strikes me as deeply revealing of some people's hypersensitivity fo criticisms of Obama. One floor commeentator at CNBC rants about wealth redistribution and THIS is the reaction? Get a life people. The country has far more pressing problems to deal with than whether CNBC is biased.
Yea what patagonia said, more or less.
And John Stewart not only said the problem was with CNBC, but his problem with them was failing to meet their journalistic obligations, not actually creating the whole mess to begin with.
I think the problem is that for a large chunk of people, Jim Cramer is a very tangible feature of that gray hazy thing called "the economy" with which they are only slightly familiar. Jon Stewart's smart and I love his show, but he doesn't know anything more about how this stuff works than anyone else. So when Jim Cramer's head floats eerily out of that economy-flavored mist on onto their tv screens, Stewart and other people swing away like aggressive whack-a-mole players. Someone has to bear responsibility, at least someone whose name we know and is somewhat connected with the issue.
Vague groups of people and policies over decades of time are not easy things to rail against on news-oriented entertainment shows.
I mean, Megan acknowledges that certain individuals probably regret taking Cramer's advice. So it's not like Stewart said he had *no* negative causal influence.
But the thrust of his criticisms seemed to be about failing to live up to any minimal standard of journalistic integrity, when they're supposed to actually be reporting on these things.
Does anyone doubt that Stewart is correct in his criticisms? Or is it just that they don't like the messenger?
Megan, are you willing to address the *substance* of Jon Stewart's criticisms of Cramer/CNBC?
Thought not.
Does anyone else sense that Megan has developed a disturbing obsession with protecting CNBC's rep? It's as though something personal hurts everytime she has to watch or think about Stewart's a-hole ripping of CNBC and Cramer. And let's not try to pretend this wasn't about Cramer. Stewart showed the tape of Cramer admitting that he manipulates stocks and fools the SEC. Cramer was red-faced and apologetic, to his credit. Why would Megan defend Cramer's failures and possible crimes, when Cramer himself was repentant. Very strange. Maybe it's time for a vacation, girl. This whole Santelli/Cramer/CNBC thing has really taken a toll on your credibility and your brain.
Megan continues her undefeated streak against Strawman.
I actually enjoy watching Cramer, but I would never buy stocks based on his predictions, even if I had the money to do so which I do not.
On the other hand, when Stewart pointed out some stupid things he had said in the run up to and in the midst of the meltdown, he counter-attacked and got his ass handed to him by Stewart. I certainly don't feel sorry for him.
Now, lets hear you address Stewart's larger criticism that MSNBC is engaged in cheerleading rather than reporting useful news which might have indicated to people that something was seriously the matter with the mortgage market before it all went south.
I will say that it may be that the masses of people who took pleasure in Stewart's takedown of Cramer may be wildly swinging away like Brain Moore said.
But I think it's important to point out that from watching the actual interview, it was clear that while Stewart was holding Cramer accountable for something, it wasn't for actually creating the mess. Hell he wasn't even saying CNBC created the mess. His criticisms were rather... oh hell I'm probably whipping a dead horse, I know.
When did Crammer ever claim to be a journalist? I don't watch his show, but isn't he a retired fund manager who runs a stock picker show? You watch his show to get stock picks. I am sure some people did regret taking his advice. It is the nature of picking stocks. But that doesn't make him a journalist.
It is funny. The same people who claim that Stewart should be immune to all journalistic standards because he is a comedien think that Crammer should be held to such standards because he is a stock picker who happens to be on TV.
There are people on CNBC who call themselves journalists. Maria Bartoromo to name one. If Maria doesn't meet journalistic standards, then go after her. But whoever said Crammer is a journalist?
If it is such a sideshow, why have two substantial (though not particularly substantive) posts on it? It looks as if you're concerned that people will view Stewart, not Santelli, as the Shrugger of Atlas.
I do note, however, that you've snuck in the Greenspan exculpation, which is quite sly, as you have otherwise been silent on Greenspan's mendacious op-ed. I gather your post on AIG's bonus structure will be contained in something on the sanctity of contracts, nominal wage stickiness, or some such.
Well, I would make it a little more forceful than the way you put it: what Jim Cramer does isn't very useful, but he cultivates an image that suggests that it is very useful, and allows his network to play up the idea that what he does is very useful. I think that was part of Stewart's point. Even if he doesn't explicitly claim to be a prognosticator or a guide to inevitable wealth, he is certainly branded as such, and deliberately so, and I think that deepens the sin.
"And he encourages people to pursue a destructive activity, trading their own portfolios, when most economic research shows they'd be better off in an index fund."
To be fair to Cramer, this isn't entirely true. He only suggests investing in individual stocks (which isn't the same thing as "trading" them) for people who can afford to spend one hour of research per week per stock. And even then, he often uses "Mad Money" to refer to non-retirement accounts. For everyone else, he parrots the conventional wisdom about recommending low-cost index funds.
"Regardles of whether Jon Stewart made some legitimate criticisms (he did), the whole lefty crusade against CNBC strikes me as deeply revealing of some people's hypersensitivity fo criticisms of Obama."
DSR is mostly on the mark here. These recent comments by Cramer seem to be what has set Jon Stewart and other folks on the left against him so vociferously:
As I noted elsewhere ("More Obama Supporters Concerned by the President's Recent Actions"), and believe I have mentioned here before, Warren Buffett and Stewart Taylor of National Journal have made similar criticisms of Obama recently. Cramer has been getting the heat, apparently, because he's a much easier topic.
Megan's comment completely misses Jon Stewart's point. The overarching theme that week was that CNBC committed irresponsible journalism. In other words, Cramer is exactly as Megan described him, a destructive cheerleader.
He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a journalist or investigative reporter. Jon Stewart's whole point is that CNBC should not pretend to hold themselves out as journalists when they are clearly not acting in that capacity.
So, I would contend that Megan's point is correct, but misguided. The fact that Cramer is a buffoon or is not a buffoon misses the point that CNBC never were journalists and should never have held themselves out as such at all.
John,
Good. At least we're on topic now. Forgive me though, for I usually want to put one topic to bed before moving on to another, or criss-crossing between topics so that the argument gets more and more muddled as we go along.
I think Freddie has the right idea of what Stewart's critiques were about, but for now, I would prefer to wait until we had consensus on the wrong-headedness of asserting the Stewart was blaming Cramer for the macro-economic events of late.
If we want to say that there are people out in the world who think this is what Stewart said, fine. But it should be pointed out that this was not what Stewart said. This seems to be what Megan's post was about.
The problem with Jon Stewart's posturing is that it's the perfect intersection of being too self-righteous and too little informed. These two reinforce each other and create an invitation to ignorance. Who needs to think or analyze when all you need to have is ideology and a smug knowing attitude. Now just run clips while tossing in lots of irony and sarcasm for the SWPL masses.
One of Stewart's most effective slams against Cramer is CNBC's use of the "In Cramer We Trust" promotional material.
I think it's valid to question why we should trust a guy who provided lessons in short selling and who pushed Bear Sterns right before they crashed.
And Megan, why should you defend him after he failed to defend himself when he had the chance?
If Cramer was any good as a hedge fund manager, he would never have become a tv personality. Anyone who has a secret about how to make money trading stocks doesn't go around shouting his secrets out in public, instead they use that knowledge to make money. The fact is, Cramer was an abject failure as a hedge fund manager, so he had to look elsewhere to make his dough. After a while, he figured out that while he knows little about successful investing, he does excel at "investainment", insofar as he has a loyal audience of fools who will watch him do his thing. Of course, once you decide to become an "investainer", you become fair game to a guy like Stewart...and there's nothing wrong with that either.
Megan sides with the "suits", whoever and wherever they may be. Once you get that point about her, then everything else falls into place rather nicely.
She doesn't so much miss Stewart's point as ignore it entirely.
Waaaaaahhhhh! Jon Stewart made fun of Jim Cramer! Waaaahhh! And Jon Stewart made me feel bad because I was defending Rick Santelli and now everybody\'s laughing at Rick Santelli and Jim Cramer! Waaaahh! That means all of America is laughing at me! Waaahhhh! I\'m telling on you Jon! I\'m telling the teacher! Waaahhhh!!!!
"No, neither Jim Cramer nor CNBC created this mess."
You DID actually watch the interview right? Because Stewart made this same point.
The reason this little "sideshow" has caught the public's attention is because we're tired of being lectured to by the Santelli's of the world that WE were the ones irresponsible now that the entire sorry mess the Wall Street culture created is blowing up in everyone's face.
Stewart's problem was having to listen to these blowhards talk about building an "Obama proof" portfolio and chastising "losers" who are being foreclosed upon while all the while they were doing everything to flatter the powerbrokers who were the REAL cause of the current meltdown.
Seeing the entire point of your blog (apparently) is to flatter and defend the rich and powerful its hardly a surprise that you have found some rationalization as to why we shouldn't take all of this too seriously. I mean you can't refute any of these points, so best to pretend its not a real issue.
These people, YOUR people, created a culture in this country that allowed this to happen. CNBC touts itself as an authority when its clear they were an appendage of this same culture. Since this is a fairly obvious and simple point, one can only assume you are actively trying not to see it.
Jon Stewart's whole point is that CNBC should not pretend to hold themselves out as journalists when they are clearly not acting in that capacity.
Exactly. Cramer--and many on CNBC--are not journalists.
They are market manipulators, largely controlled by short-sellers and other special interests.
Cramer should not have a TV show and CNBC should come clean and admit its role in manufacturing the 'crisis.'
I'm with most of the comments here. Megan's a smart person so I assume her summation of the argument as "Jim Cramer didn't kill the markets" is a strawman instead of a misinterpretation of the debate.
The point that Stewart makes (one that's been echoed since the run-up to the Iraq war) is that journalists have abrogated their duty in the name of access or ratings or whatever they feel is more important than serving as the fourth estate.
The pathetic behavior of the entire journalism industry didn't cause the collapse of the financial industry and it didn't cause the Bush administration to invade Iraq on false pretenses, but it made it easier for them to happen.
I only hope we return to a market that rewards investigative journalism and encourages insightful analysis rather than soundbites and cushy "exclusive" interviews.
Megan, did you actually view the interview at any point before writing your article?
Whether you like Stewart's preachiness or not, he was not as you suggest blaming Cramer for the current economic meltdown. Look real hard. Its not there.
There are legitmate criticisms of Stewart's position that you could take, but you instead seem to feel comfortable making up positions that he didn't take and then slamming those.
As to the actual points Stewart was making, Megan, what is your view of the role of financial journalists/commentators?
Cramer is learning the danger of criticizing Obama. Obamatons will deal viciously with such people, and in the case of Democrats going off the range, most viciously. However, Cramer is a big boy, and I am sure he relishes the attention as much as any media person.
Jon Stewart's point boiled down to this: You and the company or organization you represent did not do your jobs properly; start doing your job properly and there won't be a need for people like me (i.e., satirical ombudsmen). Now, when will the Daily Show put some SEC, credit agency, Treasury, and Fed reps in the hot seat?
John J
I have never liked Crammer's show or shows like it. It seems to me that they enforce this idea that only suckers don't invest in the market and do things like work for a living as opposed to moving money around. The fact is that there is no totally safe investment. Playing the stock market on a stock by stock basis, as opposed to an index fund, is about the same as gambling in Vegas. It is probably not a very good idea for the average person. Moreover, even if it is, there is nothing wrong with working hard and saving in a conventional way. I think Crammer and people like him in many ways devalue work and effort.
"The pathetic behavior of the entire journalism industry didn't cause the collapse of the financial industry and it didn't cause the Bush administration to invade Iraq on false pretenses, but it made it easier for them to happen."
Good point. I think that the problem today is that journalists have been replaced by mouthpieces for the right and the left. And for some reason slapfights between them have become bigger news than the events themselves.
Thus we have a ton of stories about Rush vs. Michael Steele and Cramer vs. Stewart, but very little meaningful debate about the issues.
Glad to see you sticking up for Cramer.
Stewart made a complete ass out of himself.
Cramer is the most proletariat of the finance personalities.
He has been fighting to bring back the Uptick Rule for months.
He is not without self-interest, but once you learn to avoid
his stock recommendations, you can learn a lot.
No. No. No.
Either Megan hasn't been closely watching this thing from the beginning, or she's being monumentally obtuse.
Stewart's problem with CNBC was not that they caused the financial crisis. It was that they had a number of interviews with bank executives, where they could have called attention to the shady practices going on. Instead, they passed to make the network more entertaining.
Cramer was initially lumped into a montage with a bunch of the other CNBC shows . He received special treatment because he was the only one to respond.
There are a lot of smart people here, Megan included. I find it hard to believe that anyone seriously thinks John Stewart is suggesting that Jim Cramer was one of the causes of the mortgage meltdown.
About four years ago I tracked all of Jim's lightning round style picks over a six month period with an Excel sheet. I stopped mainly because the results looked as if I'd thrown darts at a wall. Basically there was a slight negative average performance overall and placing his picks into four categories sell, strong sell, buy, and strong buy, showed no impact on the results. I would at least had expected strong sells and strong buys to have fared differently. Naturally because this is Cramer I'm talking about he had more buys than sells overall. This is just my Cramer experience, it could have all just been randomness.
Maybe Stewart is picking on Cramer because it is easy to do. Mockery is the sincerest form of mockery.
Yancey,
Are you f..ing kidding me? If you believe that, you are even dumber than Cramer is.
What a moron you must be.
Cramer, CNBC, and Stewart are all symptoms, not the problems. Different problems of course.
Clearly McArdle exercises the same objectivity and investigative powers on the level that CNBC does. Stewart's point is that CNBC did nothing to question the insane financial growth occuring due to derivatives and hedging, Citi Fannie Freddie AIG Bear Lehman BOA Merrill Goldman hijinks and the Bush's brain-dead SEC. All along they did hail the financial markets and the CEOs that led them as signs of the second coming. CNBC is nothing but, as Stewart said, an Infomercial and not a News Network. They are not journalists. They simply are marketers.
1:55=imposter
"Now, when will the Daily Show put some SEC, credit agency, Treasury, and Fed reps in the hot seat?"
--When Republicans are in office. (/rimshot)
Cramer was ripped on because he's: 1) a talking head; 2) can't defend himself well; 3) he had the audacity to criticize Obama.
Stewart tried to set himself up as the sane man versus the huckster man, but it doesn't work out too well when your motives are less than pure, as Stewart's were in this case.
AJV, Jeremy, et al, you're absolutely right: this is Megan's M.O. when she takes an untenable position: ignore the real debate which she can't argue with, and reframe it with a false debate which surprise-surprise she can defend her position against. She's doing it here, she did it when she was called out over her conflict-of-interest when she defended her boyfriend's former bosses at Freedomworks (when she was called out for conflict-of-interest, she re-framed the criticism against her as if it was about transparency, which she could claim she upheld, rather than conflict-of-interest, which is what the real criticism was about). It looks like she's still fighting the Freedomworks/Santelli fight, and she's still using the same deceptive rhetorical sleight-of-hand to bolster her position. Let's keep calling her out on this. Maybe her editors will finally get wind that the Atlantic is being used. (Word has it that the New York Times passed up McArdle for Douthat precisely over this conflict-of-interest scandal, so there's something to cheer!)
"NEW YORK (AP) - Some critics are seizing on comedian Jon Stewart's attacks of CNBC to launch an online petition drive urging the network to be tougher on Wall Street leaders.
The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America and some economists are behind the effort, launched Monday. They're asking CNBC to hire economic voices with a track record of being right about the current crisis and do more to hold business leaders accountable.
CNBC has been in the firing line since Stewart pointed out network personalities who, in retrospect, offered bad financial advice.
CNBC had no immediate comment. CNBC spokesman Brian Steel said last week that the network was proud of its record of offering diverse opinions on the economy. "
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96V7JR82&show_article=1
Odd line of coincidences isn't it? A couple of people criticize BO on CNBC. Then Stewart goes after Crammer. Now there is a coordinated effort to go after CNBC. The message is clear, if you like your network, you might not want to criticize dearlybeloved Leader.
New drapes are important.
As for Stewart, I will say only this- I wish he were the one interviewing Bernanke on 60 Minutes, last night. I am guessing that Bernanke only agreed to the interview if he could select the questions beforehand. That interview is a disgrace to the profession of jounalism.
"As for Stewart, I will say only this- I wish he were the one interviewing Bernanke on 60 Minutes, last night. I am guessing that Bernanke only agreed to the interview if he could select the questions beforehand. That interview is a disgrace to the profession of jounalism."
That is the problem with having the media be in the service of one party. It is not so bad when that party is out of power. Then the media can at least claim to being watchdogs. But once the media party gets in power, the media just becomes and arm of the government. Honestly, if CBS were a state run media outlet, would the interview with Bernanke have been any different?
What strikes me about this thread is the variety of names that Tucker Carlson is trolling under.
Let's take a step back *Why* did Jon Stewart get so upset about Jim Cramer? Cramer has been doing this for a long time, Stewart could have done it a long time ago.
But, until a couple weeks ago Cramer was a good liberal, an Obama man. Then he had the temerity to criticize, however timidly, Obama's political program. Cramer is *for* everything Obama is proposing. He is a left liberal. He *only* asked, as Oliver Twist asked for more gruel, that Obama concentrate on the financial system first!
Strangely enough, Cramer is the only one to get this treatment. He's an easy target for a stooge like Stewart. But there have been so many people, good liberals, saying the same thing that there is no way to go after them all.
Christina Romer has been called out by the Huffington Post. The *Huffington* *Post* you people. The last bubble, the Obama bubble, has burst. After everything else, the people still believed in a Savior, He how would deliver them, and bring Hope, and Change. And now, they are beginning to realize that being Not George Bush is not enough to save the world. Obama was a junior senator, who spent at least half his time in office running for President. He managed his electoral successes mainly by getting his opponents disqualified.
Let's take a step back *Why* did Jon Stewart get so upset about Jim Cramer? Cramer has been doing this for a long time, Stewart could have done it a long time ago.
But, until a couple weeks ago Cramer was a good liberal, an Obama man. Then he had the temerity to criticize, however timidly, Obama's political program. Cramer is *for* everything Obama is proposing. He is a left liberal. He *only* asked, as Oliver Twist asked for more gruel, that Obama concentrate on the financial system first!
Strangely enough, Cramer is the only one to get this treatment. He's an easy target for a stooge like Stewart. But there have been so many people, good liberals, saying the same thing that there is no way to go after them all.
Christina Romer has been called out by the Huffington Post. The *Huffington* *Post* you people. The last bubble, the Obama bubble, has burst. After everything else, the people still believed in a Savior, He how would deliver them, and bring Hope, and Change. And now, they are beginning to realize that being Not George Bush is not enough to save the world. Obama was a junior senator, who spent at least half his time in office running for President. He managed his electoral successes mainly by getting his opponents disqualified.
"If you want a television host, or network, to blame all of our troubles on, you'd do better to cast your ire on Home and Garden Television, and Flip This House. They're the ones who told Americans, over and over and over and over, that it was possible to get rich by installing granite countertops."
This is what I've been saying for a while now! I love HGTV, but like so many things, it can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
And if The Daily Show doesn't at least try to grill SEC,credit agency,Treasury, and Fed reps (most would decline to appear)then Jon Stewart isn't doing his job properly and is instead an entertaining political hack. Real satire attacks folly, especially its most egregious form: hubris.
Stewart did a good job of pointing out CNBC's belly flop as an instance of journalism's failure. Could, or would he even dare, do the same if the target were a powerful person or institution from which no one can escape--as opposed to a merely influential one?
Come on, Jon, take the next step in being a good satirist: tell the truth to power and laugh the devil out.
"If Cramer was any good as a hedge fund manager, he would never have become a tv personality."
Why not? After ~10 years running his hedge fund (before which he was making seven figures at Goldman) Cramer was burning himself out and already had "F You" money. So now he has a much easier, seven figure job, along with a successful business on the side (TheStreet.com).
i'm shocked! shocked! Megan has nothing to say about AIG.
Way to stay classy, Megs.
Wow, the Obama attack strategy has been exposed. If you dare to speak against him you'll face the wrath of The Daily Show. Last night Comedy Central ran a highly promoted Larry the Cable Guy roast, it was actually a nuanced attack aimed at Sean Hannity.
Reno 911 is going after Rush. Look out!
What is it with this liberal 2-step?
First you claim Stewart as some kind of truth to power;
Then you claim he's bozo with no authority.
Doesn't it hurt your brains to constantly contradict yourselves?
basic,
our brains don't hurt as much as your colon which doubles as a voicebox.
Jim Cramer had no influence over the twin manias that afflicted America in the last ten years: the madness of homebuyers for ever more expensive houses, and the madness of bankers for buying bonds based on those homes.
Does the madness of regulators to allow insurance policies on bonds to be sold as non-insurance products -- thus falling outside of admitted asset requirements, meaning that the only limitation on how much non-insurance insurance could be written was the amount of paper physically available in the world -- fit into category 1 or category 2?
Because that's the biggest part of the story. If AIG was forced to put assets in a trust to back up its default swaps, it would have written a lot fewer of them. Which means fewer MBSs could be sold, which means more lenders are stuck with their loans, which means underwriting standards actually exist.
I think most of the people who thought the Stewart/Cramer thing was great journalism are the same people who are currently "underwater" on their mortgages.
Why did Stewart go fter Cramer? How about going after the Wall Street Journal and the financial reporters at the NY Times? I don't recall them sounding the warning bells - and they're real journalists!
The evidence that people without inside information can't pick individual stocks or time markets is overwhelming. I have long argued that people who purport to do those things for money should go to jail. Not just Cramer, of course, but all of them. Oddly, most people think I'm kidding when I say that. But what the heck; we've criminalized just about everything else in this country, so why not this. You can get 5 years in jail for selling a ball-point pen or a pre-1985 book to a child, thanks to CPSIA, so why not jail all the stock pickers, too?
And shoot the lawyers twice.
Basic,
What is it with your rightwing two-cry? First you whine that Stewart's not fair when he makes America laugh at your man Santelli, then you whine twice as hard when Stewart makes America laugh at your man Cramer. Doesn't it hurt your tear ducts to whine so much?
McArle, most of your readers get the following point:
THIS WAS NOT ABOUT JIM CRAMER.
Cramer wasn't even the first choice as a sacrificial lamb. Rick Santelli refused to be in the show, which is a shame, really. If someone had to be humiliated, I think people in general would much prefer Santelli.
But all this is besides the point. The point is, the public likes to think that the media, and that includes financial media, has a specific role in our society. They expect to get informed by professionals with a minimum of independence and critical thinking. Instead, what they get is a bunch of supposed journalists drooling over CEOs, and failing to meet the most basic of journalistic standards in an interview. I mean, you should buy stock of a company - the CEO recommends it. Come on!
CNBC does fake journalism. It cannot be relied upon as a financial news source. Thanks to Jon Stewart, more people know this.
A lot of people posting here have never watched Jim Cramer's show. If we were a cheerleader for corporate America, he'd be sticking buy recommendations on just about everything. He doesn't do that and never did. I can specifically recall him calling BS on the public statements of many companies, including MBIA, Citigroup, and others, well over a year ago. That's not to say that he isn't often wrong, and it's not to say that much of his investment advice is terrible. It is. But being wrong or foolish is not the same as being a mindless cheerleader.
Did Cramer fail to see the subprime meltdown? Sure, along with virtually everyone else. What was he supposed to ask these CEOs that would have illuminated the risks that almost no one foresaw? The ratings agencies were rating this crap as AAA investments. Of course, if anyone wants to really listen to executives answer detailed questions about finances, they have only to patch into the analyst conference calls. Cramer never said anything to dissaude people from doing this sort of homework -- quite the opposite. It used to be that the analyst calls were essentially off limits to the public. Federal law -- promulgated under the Bush administration, no less -- ended that practice, resulting in simulcasts of every call.
And what was there before Cramer and MSNBC? Were people more likely to buy stocks only after a thorough review of the fundamentals? No, they traded on "tips" from friends that were probably based on even less research than Cramer does, if any at all. Either that or cold-calling brokers who may have been pushing total garbage. And of course, the market has had major meltdowns before CNBC -- hell, before television -- was invented. The notion that Cramer. fast Money, etc., have anything to do with where we are now is incredibly spurious, and the mere fact that Cramer can;t think on his feet to defend himself doesn't change that fact.
Nimed,
Explain to me why the following quote isn't at odds with itself:
What is it about those two that "people" want to humiliate them?
Cramer is to investment what Coulter is to constitutional scholarship.
They are clowns paid well to run interference for the powerful. The free market in action.
CNBC and Cramer are deserving of every bit of contempt that can be heaped upon them. Marie should have been on it years ago. The market place of ideas was bare. Everyone within a mile of the mainstream was silent through laziness, willful ignorance or self interest, including all or politicians, as we inflated our assets with borrowed money and called it wealth.
Real Libertarians were disgusted. The comfortable and self satisfied sometimes rolled their eyes. That's it.
Nice point, Megan, about HGTV. That channel is Evil.
"Cramer wasn't even the first choice as a sacrificial lamb. Rick Santelli refused to be in the show, which is a shame, really. If someone had to be humiliated, I think people in general would much prefer Santelli."
Did Stewart criticize CNBC before Santelli's piece? If not, is he criticizing CNBC for not calling the financial disaster or for allowing two of its personalities to criticize Obama?
The idea that CNBC should have done some investigative journalism and disclosed the impending financial crisis is rediculous.
Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Warren Buffet, and David Swenson all got it wrong too, and they are all geniuses with massive incentives to get it right. There isn't anybody at CNBC with the brainpower or access to knowledge to come close to any of those guys, but Stewart either wants (1) to scapegoat them for something everybody else got wrong too; or (2) to punish them for allowing some of their talent to say negative things about Obama.
@DEM:
Gosh, maybe CNBC financial 'reporters' could listen to those conference calls, analyze the claims, dig up the facts and do some followup interviews with various sources to support or undermine those claims, and put the results of their investigation on the air.
Instead, Cramer's attitude is (literally) "We interview those CEO's and they LIED to us! What are we supposed to do?"
This is what drives Stewart crazy. For some reason he just hates "journalists" who don't see investigation and skepticism as part of their jobs.
It's reasonable to hate them, because it's a moral flaw - laziness - for a journalist to be satisfied with pointing a camera and a microphone at a CEO (or the President.)
The failure of the "fourth branch of government" to do its job helps explain our current situation.
> The idea that CNBC should have done some investigative journalism and disclosed the impending financial crisis is rediculous.
Hardly 'ridiculous'. There's been analysis on say Calculated Risk for at least three years going over the rotten fundamentals of the housing bubble.
If you could only have coupled that with some slightly knowledgeable insider's analysis of the exposure of Wall Street to mortgage securitization, I think you could've called it perfectly.
A lot of people did, actually. Just not financial reporters, ironically.
Interesting moment in the interview when Stewart admitted that the two were both essentially purveyors of snake-oil, but that the Daily Show advertises itself as such and CNBC tells its viewers they're getting "Miracle Tonic". Well, isn't the point of snake oil that people think it's miracle tonic? And isn't it the huckster's code that it's a sin not to take a sucker's money? Jon Stewart, of course exists at that curious limbo, where he can confess to be nakedly misleading, while at the same time posing as a latter day Menckenesque muckraker, speaking truth to power through the whimsical language of comedy.
The problem with this posture is that when he excoriates Cramer, and tells him just how gosh darned angry he makes him, comedy takes a far back seat. However, when interviewing Evo Morales, by any measure a man who is far more destructive than a cable tv host, spirits were high and the humor was inevitably aimed at the USA's lack of liberty, enjoyed by those members of what Morales refers to as "The Axis of Good" (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia).
Anyone intelligent can watch The Daily Show, or Colbert, and see beyond the superficiality of the comedy to what their underlying serious points are. I do not think this is over reading, especially considering the fact that Colbert himself made a comparison once in an interview between his show and Weimar Cabaret Satire - not exactly a comforting equivocation. But Jon Stewart, and Colbert to a lesser extent, thinks that he can have his cake and eat it too. He deep down thinks that an avowedly socialist comedian can provide objective, no bullshit news and commentary, where the others (crossfire) fail in a form that belies its intent. Well, unfortunately the last two generations of ivy-league graduates have proven him right.
memo to basic bonehead: I agree with the criticisms of Cramer. His show is clownish, and he has become a clown. And I don't think I ever heard Stewart mocking Santelli, let alone disagreed with it.
Nice try, though.
Stewart wanted somebody from CNBC to be a guest on the show, somebody to speak in their name and be confronted. Cramer was the one who accepted. He wasn't even the first choice. That Cramer took such a sheepish position was his decision, and frankly I was quite surprised.
About people wanting to humiliate them: well, most of the public isn't too happy about anything remotely related to Wall Street. That plays a part. Personally, I tend to sympathize with Jim Cramer. That little weasel Santelli, with the "losers" commentary, did get on my nerves.
But Megan keeps treating Stewart as if he had some sort of personal vendetta with Cramer. That's simply missing Stewart's point about CNBC and the financial media.
Yancey,
You are a disgrace to all hominids. What little brainpower you do posess seems to be monopolized by autonomic functions. One wonders if you manage to avoid soiling yourself from time to time.
Stewart wanted somebody from CNBC to be a guest on the show, somebody to speak in their name and be confronted. Cramer was the one who accepted. He wasn't even the first choice. That Cramer took such a sheepish position was his decision, and frankly I was quite surprised.
And why did Stewart suddenly want someone from the CNBC to be a guest on his show?
You're shifting the focus, but the issue is the same.
Cramer makes snarky, little researched, out of context, and often wrong remarks about the financial markets, and people listen to him.
Stewart makes snarky, little researched, out of context, and often wrong remarks about politics, and people listen to him.
Yeah, Stewart's got some moral authority there.
Stewart only got his panties in a bunch when Santelli criticized The Messiah's plan. Funny how we went 6-7 months without Stewart taking a rip, but get a few CNBC commentators to take Obama to task, and suddenly Stewart's deploying the big guns.
Anyone going on Stewart or Colbert should know this: if you're left-wing, it's a buddy-buddy, joking around interview; if you're right wing, they'll pretend to go buddy buddy, then suddenly drop the act and stop laughing and morph into Dan Rather-on-the-ROTC-memos intensity. But if the right winger starts zingning back, suddenly "Hey man, back off, I'm just a comedian, you're taking me seriously."
Personally, I think Republicans/rightwingers shouldn't be going on these shows. Let them devolve completely into left-wing echo chambers (which they are now about 80%). They can quote each other in the NY times and drink at cocktail parties together and then be shocked when Republicans start winning again because "well, no one I know is voting for them!"
Let them be victims of their own unfairness and bias.
Yancy, I apologize, 3:36 is not me, just a cheap imposter, too afraid to pick her own SN and fight her own battles.
...And that's exactly the issue.
People can claim that Megan got it wrong and Stewart is calling them out for being shitty journalists, but the fact remains that Stewart never bothered to call them out until they criticized Obama.
This isn't a coincidence. He didn't deem it important to challenge their credibility until they used it to attack Obama.
They've continued to run the exact same ship for months after the stock market began its dive. It evidently wasn't important to draw attention to their misdeeds for the past several months when most of the value was lost. It suddenly is now, when the market is hovering over it's latest bottom. Hmm.
Cramer doesn't care they don't do a good job at being journalists. He cares that they challenged Obama.
TheWesson,
Skepticism is not absent from CNBC or from Mad Money. Back in early 2008, as only one example, MBIA insisted that it was adequately capitalized. AIG did the same. Cramer essentially called them both liars and explicitly called for the SEC to investigate AIG, months before the bailout. These are just a few examples. But if Stewart runs a few clips of fluff questions to CEOs, then it becomes the discovered "truth" that MSNBC does nothing but that.
The notion that we'd all have avoided lossess had MSNBC just dug a little deeper is silly. MSNBC is not Goldman Sachs, etc. Analysts at those companies are already doing the kind of in-depth, expert analysis of which you speak.
At any rate, if MSNBC is as pathetic as you assume -- merely passing on CEO's optimism as gospel -- isn't it obvious that it's doing so? Any dolt can tell the difference between a real question and a softball. To suggest that people invest based on a CEO's optimism merely because it is channeled through the intermediary of MSNBC, as opposed to getting the information directly from the source in a company press release -- seems very far-fetched.
"A lot of people posting here have never watched Jim Cramer's show. If we were a cheerleader for corporate America, he'd be sticking buy recommendations on just about everything. He doesn't do that and never did. I can specifically recall him calling BS on the public statements of many companies, including MBIA, Citigroup, and others, well over a year ago. That's not to say that he isn't often wrong, and it's not to say that much of his investment advice is terrible. It is. But being wrong or foolish is not the same as being a mindless cheerleader."
I watched CNBC for all of one week and quit watching it because it was obviously not journalism. You do not need to be a financial expert to note that a bunch of people yelling at you and special effects does not equal real news.
Personally, as a general rule, this is my sentiment about most TV "news" They purport to hold themselves out as serious news reporting agencies. In point of fact, their sole goal appears to be to drive up their rating numbers in order to make a profit.
Good for them. Just do not claim to be an actual news reporting agencies. Admit that you are there for entertainment purposes and move on.
Which was Jon Stewart's point all along.
Be an entertainer and admit that is what you are doing or be a serious news journalist. Do not pretend to be one and do the other.
It seems that some people here are so caught up in playing political "gotcha" that they seem to miss the fundamental point that tv news is rarely news anymore. Most serious news content is being found online in today's world.
Basic Fact,
No worrys. I can discern which comments are yours and which are not.
"Personally, I think Republicans/rightwingers shouldn't be going on these shows. Let them devolve completely into left-wing echo chambers (which they are now about 80%). They can quote each other in the NY times and drink at cocktail parties together and then be shocked when Republicans start winning again because "well, no one I know is voting for them!""
The problem is that for the most part the media today consists of either left or right wing "echo chambers".
But in any case Obama and the Democrats won- big time. And they aren't doing anything that they didn't warn us about first. The Republicans run on a platform of responsible government and lower spending, and then they get into office and spend like Democrats.
The BASIC FACTS are that if the GOP had done a good job when they had a shot we wouldn't be having this conversation because the Dow wouldn't of dropped by 50%.
In today's world, there are two kinds of people. People who are smart and people who are dumb. Many of the conservatives who blog here are basically dumb. I'm very sorry to have to bring this to insult some of you, it makes me sad that many of you do not possess the kind of basic knowledge which would be required in order to formulate an intelligent opinion but it is what it is. I'm talking to you Yancey.
Basic Fact,
True, true, true ...
I think that Comedy Central's dynamic duo, but to a greater extent, team MSNBC, will become the next FOX news. The opposition always becomes tired and irrelevant when "their guy" finally seizes power. I always thought, whether or not you agreed with him, Rush Limbaugh was 100 times better during the 90's, if for no other reason than that he wasn't a de facto cheerleader.
And Rachel Maddow, for all her bragging of a Rhodes Scholarship, can only bring herself to consistently debate that worthy adversary and vaunted man of letters, Pat Buchanan.
He didn't criticize CNBC that I know of before Santelli's piece. But you could ask another question: did reporters at CNBC criticized Obama before Santelli did? The answer to that is yes, and Stewart didn't come after them before. I believe the catalyst for Stewart was what he says it was - Santelli's comment on the "losers’ mortgages". It was pretty outrageous to me. Like in pitchforks and torches outrageous. Call me a populist.
Saying Stewart was punishing criticism of Obama is just trying too hard. Granted that Stewart has a liberal inclination, but he often criticized Obama before. Plus, if you're a regular viewer of the Daily Show, you know that Stewart has a beef with most of the media. And what he criticizes is not some left or right wing bias. It is the sacrificing of serious reporting work to immediacy, sensationalism, laziness and noise.
He-eh-ey. Investigative or not, doing serious journalism, like not accepting on faith every statement that a CEO makes about the financial health of its own company, is one thing. Predicting the crisis is a very different one. Don't mix those two.
Those guys, as everybody else, acknowledged the existence of a housing bubble for a long time (except for Greenspan, who was famously blind to the bubble). Nobody knew exactly when it was going to burst. BUT, the point is people at CNBC knew it couldn't last forever. They knew that when it finally bursted, it would cause a stock market crash. And they knew many people have their savings and 401k partly invested in long-term stocks. So, if they were serious, they should report this facts and alert the public to these risks.
I just wonder who the imposter is. I assume it is SoV, since we haven't heard from her lovely little countennance in quite a while, and she used to get her knickers in a twist whenever she got schooled by me, but it could be this kid marcus.
Dave, I hear your arguments, but I don't think you can blame the DOW on the GOP. The Dems controlled Congress for the 1.5 years preceeding the collapse, and all during the gas crisis; what's more, the evidence shows that the crisis wasn't in anyway the fault of government---there were no regulations, nor any reuglator, in power to stop this. This was a straight-up bust.
That being said, if Dems keep trying blame Bush, I'll just case it on them right back. Makes just as much sense.
Meanwhile, NotMyPresident is making it worse and not caring.
Nimed,
What makes you sure Stewart's motivation wasn't largely a desire to humiliate Cramer (or your preferred target, Santelli)? Circumstances themselves provide much weight to the argument that Stewart's motivation was to humiliate two prominent and recent Obama critics, which is fine by me since it is his show, and the targets should know what they are being set up for, but I find the idea that Stewart was only doing this to call out CNBC on their journalistic professionalism pretty laughable on its face- but then, it is comedy.
Liberals often decry the rise and dominance of Fox News without realizing exactly WHY it is so highly rated: it is the only outlet for conservative news. Since 1/2 the country is conservative, that leaves MSNBC and CNN and NBC/ABC/CBS to fight over the other part and at best get 1/4.
CNN has tried occasionally to go moderate, and MSNBC has their one token righty (Joe, who works mornings, which is a totally different animal and not primetime), and both have tried to retread failed conservatives. MSNBC just quit and is trying for the hard left wing crown, CNN is no slouch at pulling in lefties.
It's the same as always for the left: 2 people, 3 opinions.
@Glorious, Basic Fact et al:
Your strong partisan feelings are clearly causing you to say some pretty dumb things. The reason Santelli was mocked for what he said isn't a massive left-wing conspiracy to cover up any criticism of the Messiah (and using terms like that instantly loses you pretty much all credibility among people who don't absolutely hate our president, btw). The reason he was mocked was because what he said was really, really, dumb and easily mockable. It was fake populist outrage on the *floor of a stock market*. As though the greediest people largely responsible for creating the whole mess should have any right to get upset at efforts trying to be taken to stem the bleeding they caused.
Then Santelli wouldn't come on and defend himself, because he knew he'd be humiliated because it was indefensible. So Cramer went in his place. I mean, do you even watch the show? Do I need to go find you any number of youtubes of Stewart bashing Obama? Are you just willfully ignorant?
Yancy has a point, Nimed: Stewart LOVES showing off his attack dog style on guests he doesn't like. The timing is pretty suspicious: Stewart only goes whole hog on CNBC shortly after it takes on Obama, for whom Stewart is a cheerleader?
What's with all the flying saucer/conspiracy theory freaks on this site? "Maannn...it's a conspiracy, maannnn...Stewart's in league with the government, man...Obama is hiding the alien bodies in Stewart's basement, because the government doesn't want the people to know the truth, maaann... Stewart flew those planes in the World Trade towers, man, then he blew up building 7, maaannn...so when Stewart mocks CNBC, you have to look at the person who benefits, and...you know, maaannn"
"I am the walrus?"
I would like to say that insofar as opinions go around here, I happen to view the writings of the "faux" Basic Fact, as those which might have issued from the pen of a young George Will; albeit one with really dumb opinions, evidencing a severely limited cerebral cortex. His incessant need to prove that he invented the nickname Basic Fact, when it is clear that he is unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "Fact", (although I would concede that he is indeed familiar with "Basic"), eschews a total lack of regard for truth, for were he truthful, he would admit that he simply stews in his own resentful juices that he could not have been more original in his conception. Ahhh, what a waste of oxygen, this poster child for eugenics, who slathers on the drivel with a belicose idiocy that should be met with contempt and derision.
Crop, its not about conspiracies. We're not all saying that Stewart is on Obama's or the DNC's or George Soros's payroll--although he couldn't be doing a better job if he were.
What we're saying is that Stewart's/TDS's biases in favor of NotMyPresident lead them to take on Obama opponents, even Obama supporters who dare to step out of line and question and criticize the AllSavingStimulusPlan.
Stewart wants Obama's agenda to succeed, and is using his pwoer to force it through, under hidden guises.
at once again, at 4:21, you see the imposter's cowardice.
It was fake populist outrage on the *floor of a stock market*. As though the greediest people largely responsible for creating the whole mess should have any right to get upset at efforts trying to be taken to stem the bleeding they caused.
As Megan pointed out, treating all financial fields as identical is simply ignorant.
The floor of the stock market isn't remotely where this crisis began, but I guess all the men in suits look the same to you, huh, Adam?
If I were half the man that the faux Basic Fact thinks I am; or roughly 22/7 of the man that he actually is, I would take a flamethrower to this blog. Of course if I were him with the flamethrower, I would take a flamethrower to myself muttering....too dumb to live....too dumb to live.
"As Megan pointed out, treating all financial fields as identical is simply ignorant.
The floor of the stock market isn't remotely where this crisis began, but I guess all the men in suits look the same to you, huh, Adam?"
Oh, come on. Obviously I didn't mean the specific junior traders on the floor in that video were responsible. Typical of you though to conflate the point and ignore responding to the rest of the post.
Stewart's argument is premised on conflating the stock market with the economy. CNBC analyses the STOCK market not the overall economy. The financial crisis began in the bond market.
The U.S. Government was the cause of this problem not the financial sector. It was the insistence of liberal Democrats that made it so. When Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros demanded that Fannie and Freddie invest 42 percent of their assets in buying low- and lower-middle-income mortgages, and when his successor Andrew Cuomo raised the quota to 50 percent, what did they think would happen?
You're being highly selective of circumstances. One can always see them when one's looking too hard. Consider that:
- CNBC journalists had attacked Obama before.
- if you're going to defend Obama, at any time moment I'll bet you can choose detractors with more weight and higher profiles than CNBC reporters.
If you saw the show regularly, you would know that this is exactly the kind of thing Stewart makes fun of all the time. Search youtube for the crossfire video. See the hundreds of videos on the Daily Show site mocking the CNN coverage of the elections, with all the gadgets and "holograms". The absurdity of most news shows have always been one of Daily Show's favorite targets.
Wow, faux Basic Fact is a tool, but at least he didn't write this sort of pretentious babble.
Wow, faux Basic Fact is a tool, but at least he didn't write this sort of pretentious babble.
Thank you Nimed. I love to be quoted.
Megan,
As usual, you're dead wrong. CNBC is a media carcinogen and Jon Stewart did a public service by pointing this out.
Why should any Atlantic reader expect any intelligent insight or analysis from Megan who once referred to herself as Jane Galt?
Megan do the blogosphere a favor by stepping away from the keyboard and go back to your crayons and coloring book.
Nimed,
I am not being selective at all. What are these other criticisms from CNBC of Obama? The only two that anyone has noticed were the Santelli rant on the floor of the Mercantile Exchange and Cramer's rather nuanced criticism.
Being someone that reads and watches a great deal of news, both political and business oriented, I know of a great number of CNBC sourced criticisms and praisings of the policies followed under the previous administration, and as people above have noted, Cramer himself is no blind and dumb cheerleader for business, and isn't even a journalist by training or present employment.
No, Stewart took notice of Cramer and Santelli because they made public and widely publicized criticisms of Obama's policies. It is his show, so I don't criticize this in and of itself, but I also don't try to lie to myself about his motives- those were as clear as crystal.
Yancey, I guess unemployment can afford you the luxury of watching alot of news while the rest of us pay your bills. Thanks for nothing....deadbeat.
Crop Circles, no one has alleged a conspiracy.
Stewart and his staff are perfectly capable of retaliating against CNBC for criticizing Obama without any conspiracy being required.
(Well, I suppose I do believe that Stewart works with a group of writers, producers, and technical staff to make his show, and that the show reflects their collective effort, but I wouldn't put that into the category of "conspiracy theory.")
Megan, that was awesome. Thanks for that.
"This is what drives Stewart crazy. For some reason he just hates "journalists" who don't see investigation and skepticism as part of their jobs."
-Wow, then he must really have hated the MSNBC (aka the Obama campaign) coverage of the election. They let the two most openly partisans currently employed in "journalism" anchor their primary election coverage, and would have had them cover the general but for the howls of outrage from Brokaw and others. Given the massive amount of journalistic misfeasance that we have seen in the last few years, going after CNBC is insane - it is like updating the drapes on the Titanic. The only reason Stewart did it is because they broke the NBC compact and went after Obama.
> then he must really have hated the MSNBC (aka the Obama campaign) coverage of the election. They let the two most openly partisans currently employed in "journalism" anchor their primary election coverage
Hmm, Olberman and Matthews failed to dig into the extremely shocking news waiting to be uncovered about Obama ... Obama's terrorist connections, the lack of a real birth certificate from the so-called state of 'Hawaii'?
That is terrible and Stewart should've been slapping them upside the face for ducking their journalistic responsibility.
Have you ever seen The Kudlow Report? This last February?
So you I assume you have seen The Kudlow Report last February
Hmm... So you haven't beeng seeing The Kudlow Report after all.
Well, ok. Let's leave it that at. I personally think that you would see things in another way if:
- you were outraged by what Santelli said as I was
- you had seen the Daily Show regularly in the past.
(sigh) Oh yeah, how could we forget about that?
I thought this stuff would completely dissipate after the election. But it still lingers...
Nimed, while I agree I think it is our points of view that probably drive our evaluations here, I think this was a call out by Stewart, and happened too close to Cramer's and Santelli's criticism of Obama's plan---heavily derided by the right---to have the 2 seem unrelated.
Olbermann criticizing Obama for apparently rejecting Bush's stance on civil rights but actually continuing them:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2009/02/24/olbermann-frets-obama-acting-disturbingly-bush
The dittoheads accuse people like Olbermann of being mindless stenographers and cheerleaders because *that is exactly what they would do if they were Olbermann*. Likewise with Stewart being Obama's enforcer - because that's the way the reactionary conservative wing in this country would work it if they were in power.
For better or worse, liberals are much less monolithic.
There's a lot of projection going here, I'm afraid.
call out by Stewart, and happened too close to Cramer's and Santelli's criticism of Obama's plan---heavily derided by the right---to have the 2 seem unrelated.
The truth here is unknowable by those of us who live outside Jon Stewart's head. It looks like cause-and-effect to the Right while to the Left it is just another in Stewart's long line of media take-downs.
Nimed, the thing about Basic is that he's a conspiracy theorist, so the best thing to do with him is just smile and get out of his way. He sees Jon Stewart conspiracies everywhere he looks, and if it's not Stewart conspiracies, it's Rosewell, 9/11, Jews, and whatever else he can find. Damn shame that Reagan closed down all the mental institutions.
Eh eh. I don't know... This time, he said this:
which you have to admit is pretty reasonable. It think there are a couple of people around who are signing "Basic Fact".
Hmm... Maybe I'll sign Basic Fact whenever I want to say something more unconventional.
"Obama's terrorist connections, the lack of a real birth certificate from the so-called state of 'Hawaii'?"
How about his legislative history - to the extent he has one. How about doing more than covering for Obama on his associations with terrorists and racists? If they could dig up Todd Palin's 20+ year old DUI, surely they could discover what Obama has done with the last 20 years? Or they could just fellate him on air while their legs tingled.
But whatever, keep using the straw man arguments - it's how Obama wins debates.
Go read Robert Shiller's Irrational Exuberance, again - particularly Chapter 5, titled "The News Media."
In Chapter 3, Shiller includes the "expansion of media reporting of business news" as one of 12 "precipitating factors" in the market bubbles of the last decade+ .
One can see why Megan might not welcome this analysis.
But there's media and there's media. Megan provides useful discussion and has not led anyone to irrationally exuberant investing. But that is what CNBC is all about. It is a socially harmful institution and doesn't deserve to exist anymore than drug gangs do. Both will continue to exist, of course.
You see, Holdfast, that's the Road to Crazytown, and it's been traveled before. It goes something like this:
Journalists investigate Obama's past. You either find something of importance or you don't.
- You find something - Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright. Obama has radical associations! Of course, you must disregard his associations with people who don't fit the theory, like him being a buddy of conservatives when he was president of Harvard Law Review.
- You don't find anything - That's even more significant! Somebody went through a lot of work covering his tracks.
You created an irrefutable story. Any new fact you discover about Obama makes you more sure there's something fishy about him.
Maybe I'm being unfair. So tell me: what hypothetical new fact would make you less suspicious of Obama?
Right, Holdfast. Damn the media for not digging up Obama's never year old DUI, or his never divorces. Surely there's some shit there...after all look at the pony.
Nothing is more discreditable than to have assertion and proof precede knowledge and perception [Cicero].
On the day Santelli made news, Cramer, when asked if he agreed with Santelli, said that he didn't. He then said that because Santelli was a colleague he wasn't going to go further than that.
At first Santelli and the suits at CNBC thought they were onto something, but, being who they are, almost immediately after fire started being returned they stopped preening (and firing) and found the nearest hole. Cramer, for whatever reason, stepped up and took what fire he could onto himself.
Remember what Letterman did to McCain some months ago and why? Same song with pretty much the same beat.
The problem with Megan McArdle is that she doesn't realize the similarities between herself and him. Media personalities are primarily entertainers who's substantive insights (if any) are a sideshow.
Has Stewart ever done a takedown of Olbermann? He's just a media critic looking for over the top bloviations right?
Not on Olbermann specifically. There is this very funny video about the MSNBC counterparts to Fox News. You can see Olbermann there. There is a twist: his right-wing mirror is not Bill O'Reilly...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210922&title=msnbc-replaces-fox-news
Again, you can see that Stewart clearly leans to the left. But his prefence is not really the clip's main message.
If Cramer was any good as a hedge fund manager, he would never have become a tv personality. Anyone who has a secret about how to make money trading stocks doesn't go around shouting his secrets out in public, instead they use that knowledge to make money. The fact is, Cramer was an abject failure as a hedge fund manager
This not true,,Cramer had an incredible career as a hedge fund manager and walked at the top of game to pursue his tru love of journalism which eventually morphed into the Mad Money show
A couple quick points here - points Stewart himself made addressing these arguments. First, he pointed out (and backed it up with video clips) that Cramer was "all over the map" with his advice. One day he'd make a reccommendation only to seemingly totally reverse it a day or two later. All Stewart was doing was questioning whether that was responsible; any more than being completely wrong about giving particular advice at any single point in time. (And, in my own view, rightly so!)
Second, it's all well and fine to critique Stewart for sitting on the sidelines heckling all of Wall Street, satirizing the seeming insanity of it all. But he's a comedian - and satire is part of the job. (A point he himself readily concedes, having said "that's what we do here" on numerous occasions over the lifetime of his show.) Now, as much as it was in ancient Rome and at any/all points between. His social commentary is one which questions everything, which one can flippantly dismiss as easy to do. But one is hard-pressed to find those who do it well or particularly as well as John Stewart. At the very least his jabs are largely valid in that he and his staff spend a good deal of effort doing the research to at least superficially back up his nightly diatribe. Ergo, you or I might not instantly know whether Cramer's advice was, on balance, to the greater determent of those who took it; but odds are Stewart and his team actually do. Long before they go on stage and say so.
Which is much more than can be said of many attempting to defend Cramer's and/or (more generally) CNBC's journalism since Thursday's interview. Notably absent from this group is Cramer himself, BTW....
Look, the whole debate is the newest version of an old conversation about the news media.
Stewart takes the view that the news media has a role of rigorous truth-seeking and performing due diligence in examining public persons and their policies. He thinks that a desire for access has forced the news media to essentially cover the news like most politicians and newsmakers would like it to be covered: lazily and in broad terms of left/right, or, in the case of CNBC, in a way that centers on 'what's good for the markets today?'
His critics can fairly claim that Stewart exaggerates the damage these media outlets do in their abandonment of true journalism, or claim that they are performing real journalism, or that what they are giving, is exactly what their customers want to consume, so who's really to blame?
But those are the issues at hand. It's not about Obama, nor is it about who bears the most blame for the crisis. It's about the role of the news media and if they're living up to it. In the case of CNBC, it galled Stewart that Santelli went after "losers" who haven't exercised due diligence in their own lives, while CNBC is full of reporters and analysts who made the same mistakes.
People who aren't interested in talking about that -- including Megan -- should stop pretending that the debate was about anything else, or can't be judged without reference to other issues. Frankly, I think Megan knows damn well what the real matter was, because it directlyt concerns the role of financial and economics reporters. Somehow she's talking about this as if it's not about giving her own profession scrutiny.
How insane of her.
I love how all the spooky rightwing termites crawl out of the woodwork and turn EVERY issue into some indictment of President Obama. Years of deregulation in the financial industry and corrupt Reaganomics have led the USA to the brink of economic disaster. The entire rightwing economic ideology has collapsed like the house of cards it was, and yet here come the believers, blaming the messenger. Rightwingers in modern America are exactly like those few remaining Soviet communists trying to cast blame after their system collapsed, still desperately clinging to a dead ideology. Great fun, rightards! I for one am enjoying the spectacle. Keep on clowning, wrongwingers -- it's better entertainment than even Jon Stewart provides.
I love how all the spooky rightwing termites crawl out of the woodwork and turn EVERY issue into some indictment of President Obama. Years of deregulation in the financial industry and corrupt Reaganomics have led the USA to the brink of economic disaster. The entire rightwing economic ideology has collapsed like the house of cards it was, and yet here come the believers, blaming the messenger. Rightwingers in modern America are exactly like those few remaining Soviet communists trying to cast blame after their system collapsed, still desperately clinging to a dead ideology. Great fun, rightards! I for one am enjoying the spectacle. Keep on clowning, wrongwingers -- it's better entertainment than even Jon Stewart provides.
Defending Stewart is pure idiocy. Stewart has been on the Daily Show since 1999, Cramer has been on "Mad Money" since 2005, Cramer made his erronious Bear Stearns call in March 2008, and CNBC has scores of other hosts and contributors. Yet Stewart, just coincidentally, took CNBC and Cramer to task a few days after Cramer had the temerity to criticize Obama's inept handling of the economic crisis. Stewart just now has a problem with CNBC's lack of journalistic integrity? Just coincidentally, Stewart has a problem with Cramer's Bear Stearns call a year after he made it? Where was Stewart's criticism after the dot com bubble burst? CNBC really did hype the 1990's stock market bubble in a manner that was analgous to HGTV's house flipping mania. Stewart said nothing until his hero took some heat from Cramer the blowhard. Cramer wasn't hyping credit default swaps or house flipping, he is a stock market analyst and his show has always focused on the stock market. Cramer only has an audience of several hundred thousand people.
Enough already with the highfalutin' analysis of CNBC and its effect on average investors, Stewart's hissy fit has nothing to do with any of that. Stewart's critique of CNBC is merely pretext for his defense of Obama. Stewart can't tolerate criticism of Democrat president who is as elitist, liberal and clueless as he is.
jt007
Hi again. It should be transparent from the all crap I just said that I didn't read the previous comments. Yet, I commented on them anyway, and it didn't bother me one bit that I didn't know what I was talking about. Why is that? Because, you see, I'm a conceited prick.
Conceited pricks like to do what I just did: come late at a discussion, ignore what happened before them, and write an hyperbolic text defending a point of view that was already repeated ad nauseam by more brighter people than themselves.
My imbecility is particularly obvious in the passage above: the only date relevant for my argument is March 2008, but I can't help pointing out that the Daily Show exists since 1999. The fact that "Mad Money" didn't even exist for another 6 years, or that Cramer didn't start screwing up on a daily basis until much later, doesn't excuse Obama lackey Jon Stewart for his guilty silence.
Also, the coincidence that I talk about here is a product of my imagination. Jon Stewart's attacks on CNBC were originally caused by Rick Santelli's patriotic remarks about the hundreds of thousands of losers in this country. Jon Stewart even invited Santelli before Cramer, and was turned down, a detail that I promptly discarded, on account of not fitting my simpleminded theory.
Because I just know that the most constructive way to look at Jon Stewart's comments on CNBC is through the narrow perspective of a left-right dichotomy. I'm just sure that all Stewart wanted to do was defend his liberal Obama buddy. That's why people do what they do, all the time. And I'm absolutely sure no conservative could possibly have a press that has some backbone, doesn't constantly sniff CEOs butts, and presents a realistic view of the risks of the market to its viewers.
Huh? What happened to:
"I think Jim Cramer should be illegal."
So, we shouldn't listen to Cramer because he bites the heads of plastic bulls and has sound effects? This invalidates his arguments?
I've never seen any of his critics address his actual approach and advice. To do this requires more than watching a couple of episodes. Read his last three books and watch his show for three months. His actual advice isn't that bad, not intended for everyone, and not intended for retirement money; and he makes this perfectly clear routinely. His goal is not to have you jump at all of his stock picks. He wants you to own only 5 stocks at most, and to spend an hour a week on homework for each one, and if you can't do this, he recommends an index fund instead.
His regular viewers know this, because he repeats it often. He does not repeat all of it on every show. His critics miss this because they haven't read the books or watched enough episodes.
I recommend watching yesterday's epsiode; he restated, clearly, the goals of his show and books. It's a good place for a critic to start.
There are real criticisms to be lodged at Jim Cramer, but his critics tend to make invalid criticisms because they don't do their homework (at least this is what I gather, given the criticisms I've seen)
Stewart and the other liberals have to distort the issues so they can deflect hard questioning of the left-wing politicans in Washington like Barney Frank. They need to demonize certain symbols of capitalist society like Cramer, now that George W. Bush is no longer around. By demonizing Cramer, they confuse the real issue. It plays well for the meatbals in TV land who don't know any better.
As far as Cramer is concerned, he is a trader. Don't go to him for long-term investment advice.
I'll try to spell it out a little more clearly for the idiot with the double digit IQ who posted above.
Stewart wants to pretend that he has a problem with CNBC and its lack of journalistic integrity. Perhaps only "more brighter people" than you can understand what Stewart did. The Los Angeles Times, characterized Stewart's hissy fit this way:
See, even though it went over your soft head, the idiotic liberals at the LA Times got it. Stewart singles out Cramer and Santelli but he pretends to have a larger problem with CNBC and its irresponsible journalism. Did you watch the show or do the doctors at the state hospital not let you stay up that late?
If Stewart really is angry about CNBC in general, why did he wait ten years to attack them? CNBC breathlessly hyped the dot com bubble and failed to uncover or report any of the fraud that occurred. Maybe it takes a "more brighter" person than you to grasp the simple point that Stewart has had since 1999 to take CNBC to task for its allegedly irresponsible journalism yet he coincidentally initated his diatribe immediately after Santelli and Cramer criticized our incompetent president.
The fact that Stewart invited Santelli before Cramer makes my point you ignoramus. Stewart has only focused on the two CNBC "personalities" who had the temerity to criticize the messiah. Stewart's pretense of a principled critique of CNBC is laughable.
I hate to wade in the middle of this argument, but just to make some quick points:
1. The Daily Show HAS criticized MSNBC, specifically calling it the "left-wing FoxNews," which coming from a show that relentlessly mocks FoxNews, is as big a criticism as they come.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=210922&title=msnbc-replaces-fox-news
2. What started all of this was, as some conservatives here have noted, CNBC types criticizing Obama. However, the conservatives here don't seem to fully know the timeline after that (I do because I watch the show).
First: CNBC Types such as Rick Santelli and Cramer criticize Obama.
Second: Daily Show runs clips of CNBC failing to "provide the best coverage of stocks on TV" (or w/e their motto is), such as Cramer yelling, "Bear Stearns is a good buy because it's cheap!" Basically, the idea is that these guys are criticizing Obama but haven't been doing a good job either.
Third: Jim Cramer accuses Jon Stewart of being unfair, and Santelli backs out of going on the Daily Show (he agreed to go on the show weeks before making the remarks on the market floor, and after the remarks realized he'd have a rough interview up against Stewart).
Fourth: Stewart responds to Cramer's accusations, then invites him on the show.
Fifth: Cramer goes on the show.
Hope that clears up some misconceptions. Jon Stewart has openly declared that he and the writers on his show are liberal, but he has criticized MSNBC more than once. Stewart just hates "journalists" who don't see "investigation" as part of their jobs. And CNBC runs ads saying they're "Number 1 in Financial News" so it's disingenuous to say, "Oh, CNBC isn't responsible for acting like a real news organization."