Jon Stewart vs Jim Cramer, revisited

[WiseOne]

Armed with my newly-acquired understanding of Harry Browne's philosophy, I went back and listened to what has been portrayed as one of the great showdowns in financial reporting.  In March 2009, Jon Stewart ran several pieces on CNBC, and then interviewed Jim Cramer.  For those interested (and I highly recommend it if you haven't seen these clips), here are the links:

March 4:  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-m ... ial-advice

March 9:  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-m ... r-we-trust

March 12 (3 part interview, here's part 1):  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-m ... view-pt--1

As per usual, the descriptions of this sequence in the media (e.g. Wikipedia) were highly oversimplified, and in fact Jon Stewart's critiques were far more nuanced.  (And it's worth noting, by the way, that Harry Browne was a big fan of the Daily Show, and it's a shame he was never interviewed on it.)

The Cliff notes version of Stewart's complaint, from my understanding anyway, is that CNBC presents stock picking as a fun game while glossing over the massive corruption in the financial industry that many at CNBC either were aware of, or could have become aware of with just a little more investigative effort.  Instead, what amounts to misinformation by the network has been devastating to the 401K's and life savings who don't know better than to take CNBC's advice at face value.

Both Stewart and Cramer missed some of HB's most important observations:  no one can predict what the markets will do, and stock picking is speculation, not investing.  Do listen to the Cramer interview at least, because it's most interesting when you view it in this light.  Also I enjoyed the montage comparing Cramer's predictions to the Dow and the fate of several large financial companies, except that I thought it indicated fundamental inability to predict markets rather than a nefarious plot.  Other than that, I thought Stewart's critiques were right on target.  And, nothing has changed:  witness the news about JP Morgan Chase losing 2 billion dollars on a speculation gone wrong.

Would love to hear other people's opinions here.  And enjoy the clips!  Whether you disagree with Stewart or not, I've not found this kind of hard-core interviewing anywhere else in the news media.  It's ironic indeed that a comedian with no journalism qualifications does a better job of it than nearly all the professionals.

[hoost]

Let me first say wow.  That's the first time I've watched that and it's fantastic.  I recently started listening through HB's political show and heard him mention that he really like the Daily Show.  Now I can see why.

It seems to me that Stewart's main complaint is that CNBC presents itself as a cross between a news organization and a financial advisor, and people assume they're fulfilling that role, when in reality it's more of an entertainment network with little real reporting or finance value.  From the small amount that I've watched CNBC, I would have to agree with that.

Great videos; thanks for posting.

[AdamA]

A few years ago, I spent a lot of time looking for the right pundit. Now I can't believe that anyone would ever have the nerve to go on television and make such confident predictions about the stock (or any) market.