Ok. More political mishmash today. First up, words/phrases I NEVER want to hear again. Number one: earmarks. If I hear that one more time, especially from the lips of Grumpy McCain, I’m going to rip said lips off his face. It’s all posturing, especially when the so-called earmarks equal approximately one percent of the omnibus bill. In addition, many of the so-called earmarks actually do good things, which McCain well knows. Some of the names are dopey, but all the ones he’s railed against so far have been worthwhile projects. Besides, many of those stupid Republicans who talked against earmarks inserted the very same earmarks into the very same bill! Oh, but it was USEFUL pork, so it was ok. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Lindsey Graham.
Next up, I want the stupid meme that Obama is doing ‘too much’ squashed at once. While we’re at it, I would be happy if meme disappeared as well, but I can tolerate that word. Anyway, blah blah blah focus on economics, blah blah blah, sky is falling, blah blah blah. Look, it’s should be obvious, even to the stupidest pundit that all these issues are intertwined. If we have better healthcare, then the economy will improve. Gross oversimplification, to be sure, but mostly true.
The thing is, most of the conservative pundits are well-aware of this. They just want to make enough noise to get US distracted from it because if President Obama accomplishes his vision, the Republicans are screwed. So, as Bill Kristol did when Clinton was president, the pundits now (yes, David Brooks, I’m looking at you) are trying to impede the president from implementing a progressive reform of our societal fabric. Stop it, now. The majority of the country voted for Candidate Obama and his progressive platform. As President Obama goes about doing what he promised to do when he was a candidate, the majority of this country still stands with him.
Ok, what else is in my bag of pet peeves? Lessee…ah, yes. “Who could have known?” This one is making steam come out of my ears. When talking about Wall Street and its alarming crash, many of the titans and the lesser demigods are running around, bleating, “Who could have known?” Um, Paul Krugman, among others. These assholes are acting like it was a natural disaster that took down Wall Street, indeed, I’ve heard it called a financial tsunami, and not the naked greed of the masters of the universe and the complete dereg of the financial industry. The very people who gambled away our future–they fucking knew–or should have. CNBC and Bloomberg, they fucking knew–or should have.
Here’s the thing, though. I watched Jon Stewart dissect Jim Cramer (not linking because everyone else has), and I realized that they were talking on two different levels. Jim Cramer kept saying no one could have seen it, and he wish he had. Jon didn’t believe him when all the concrete evidence was there.
Let’s look at these two different points of view. Jon had clips of Jim talking about all the shady stuff he did (hypothetically, wink, wink) when he (Jim) was a hedge fund manager. His main point was that SEC didn’t know enough to stop him from doing it. He stated this blatantly, years ago, and nothing happened to him for saying it. In other words, it was the prevailing culture of Wall Street for the last eight years in particular, and twenty-plus years in general. All the free marketer promoters were pushing their drugs, and they began to believe their own hype. They were the best and the brightest, and they couldn’t fail. The market could only go up up up because there was no regulation (made sure of that), and, surprisingly, with no regulation, the market ran off the tracks.
To them, this was the norm. This was the way it was supposed to be. What could go wrong? Jim Cramer was friends with many of these people (as he himself said on The Daily Show). He sounded hurt that they had lied to him, and Jon mocked him for it. I think it’s true, though. I think that in Jim’s mind, he was one of ‘them’ so their betrayal had to hurt him deeply. It was easy for him to take them at face value because he was one of them, or so he thought. The thing is, I would bet that many of the CEOs that lied to him weren’t actually lying. They probably believed themselves that things would get better for the very same reasons. See, once you create a false reality, it’s easy to believe that it’s real when it’s not. Then, when it all falls apart, you can’t deal with the fact that it was a big fat lie. So, more denial.
As for Jon, he voiced the frustrations we all feel right now. Many blogs are picking up on this ‘feud’, but as Jon emphasized, it’s not about Jim Cramer. It’s about the whole network of CNBC and how many of their shows are essentially propaganda-pushers for the companies they cover. I’ve never seen the shows (only the snippets that Jon has excerpted), but they are definitely infotainment, lite on the info. People should not be taking stock tip advice from a guy who makes so much freaking noise on his show. That, however, is partly the public’s fault. We demand to be entertained all the time, information be damned. I believe that we are slowly getting past this, but not, I fear, far enough.
In the end, it’s not Jim Cramer’s butt that needs to be kicked. In fact, I really felt sorry for him during the interview because he was so obviously wracked with doubt, guilt, and misery. However, he is a reminder that we need regulations and rules and all that icky grownup stuff if we don’t want another economic meltdown like the one we’re currently experiencing. Will it happen? I won’t hold my breath.
I leave you with Jon Stewart’s original takedown, which was aimed more at the duplicity of CNBC (if they couldn’t see it coming, how could we?) and Rick Santelli than at Jim Cramer.
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