The interwebs are buzzing with different takes on the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer Cable TV Smackdown. Legendary MSM basher Eric Alterman argues that Jon Stewart (single-handed killer of Crossfire) and Steven Colbert (White House Correspondents Dinner) are two of the most influential and important figures in political media, and this makes a third victory for the forces of reason over the idiocy of the MSM.
“Stewart and Colbert have done yeoman work for the rest of us by exposing the thoughtlessness of the punditocracy's perpetual-motion machine, which spins itself silly powered only by hot air.”
Tim Hanson at financial blog Motley Fool dismisses the interview as amateur hackery and accuses Stewart of insinuating that long-term investing doesn't work. He continues:
“Rather than be angry, let's recognize that the stock market, like most human endeavors, is flawed. There will be disasters and blow-ups from time to time, just as there will be bubbles. Let's use this as an opportunity to educate more Americans about how to take control of their finances and ignore the market's manic day-to-day movements. The solution is not to scare Americans into thinking the stock market is some Ponzi scheme controlled by immoral cretins that can never work for them.”
Money issues are not my area of expertise, but I did watch the interview twice, so here goes.
In no way did Jon Stewart say long-term investing does not work. No sane person would say that. He basically said just what the author says: "let's recognize that the stock market, like most human endeavors, is flawed." Stewart also said, "If it's too good to be true, it probably is." Stewart was mostly talking about the financial schemes where they tell you you'll get rich quick, not long term investing. They were talking about his mother who is 75, so there's not much long-term investing there.
Stewart is angry, and the author is right that anger is counterproductive, but a lot of Cramer's comments made it really sound like people behind the scenes knew this stuff was risky and passed it off as easy money, which would obviously make people angry, whether you think it's their own fault or not. Jon Stewart's original argument, that he harped on all week before the interview, was that Santelli is a fucking idiot (which the author admits) and that CNBC "is not good at hard-hitting reporting" (which the author admits).
At a certain point, it's true that it's counterproductive for Stewart to be overly pessimistic about the market. The difference is Jon Stewart is just a comedian and more people care about what CNBC says about the market. So I think it's totally unfair to say Stewart is "scaring Americans into thinking the stock market is some Ponzi scheme," especially when he's having less affect than CNBC. It's also unfair to scold Stewart for being overly pessimistic while giving CNBC a pass for being overly optimistic, especially when way more people care what CNBC says about the market.
Ultimately, this was all for show. Cramer is just an entertainer too, and the whole thing was about ratings. I think it was more substantive than most news only because so much of the news focuses on gossip and stories like "Obama disparaged the Special Olympics" or "John McCain misspoke today." So, it's fair to say Stewart got too angry. But his main argument was the CNBC was giving bad advice, has silly promos like "In Cramer We Trust," and Santelli sounded like an idiot. It's fair to say the argument was trivial, but I disagree that it was counterproductive.
Finally, he was really hard on Cramer, and this recession is not Cramer’s fault, but Stewart did make it clear multiple times that Cramer is kind of a scapegoat and this “feud” between them was manufactured by the media.
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