Over in the Big Apple Jon Stewart continues to fight the good fight. This week he's taunted CNBC's Jim Cramer, a figure whose stock-in-trade, so to speak, is to urge investors to buy into stocks & businesses just as the market goes even further south.
Now it seems that CNBC is changing tack in its dealings with The Daily Show. Cramer has agreed to appear as a guest on tomorrow's edition of the show (to be shown by More4 on Friday evening):
http://gawker.com/5168076/cnbc-execs-decided-to-throw-cramer-to-the-daily-show .
Gawker notes, "Perhaps the network hopes to put a cap on the 'CNBC was wrong' meme and stop mischievous tape archivists from pulling embarrassing clips of CNBC's pre-bust days. Not likely."
Meanwhile, Salon.com inflicts a sadistic punishment on one of its reporters, Gabriel Winant, by forcing him to watch the business channel for a whole day. By his own admission, Winant finds the experience to be a culture shock (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/03/11/cnbc ).
Winant observes, "I was vaguely aware that [Jim] Cramer's shtick involved high-volume, manic behaviour and sound effects. I did not expect it to involve an confession of fallibility and ignorance. 'My job is not just to entertain you but to educate you,' he says. 'You know what drives market pros and grizzled veterans crazy about this particular market? It's that no pattern that we've had before, ever, nothing that worked before, is working now.'
" 'We're like navigators operating without a map or compass.' Now, with the Dow [Jones] below 7,000, he tells us." (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/03/11/cnbc/index1.html ).
Winant also notes how CNBC's claque of cheerleaders are eager to sing their own praises if any of their tips pay off. If, however, the market, & their tips, tank, it's all the fault of Obama, whom Cramer accuses of "wealth destruction".
Let Cramer's admission that he & his ilk are effectively flying blind serve as the epitaph for the neo-con, free market ideology which has engendered the global slump.
It would also be a delicious moment if Stewart replays Cramer's confession.
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