Posted March 09, 2009
Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart
By Jim Cramer
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Suddenly, bloggers, opinion people, columnists and, yes, pundits who haven’t paid attention to anything I have been saying or writing for the past 18 months are all over me. Suddenly, I find myself in the center of a firestorm over Obama’s economic policies, taking enfilading fire from the “liberal” media (from serious columnist Frank Rich to entertainer Jon Stewart) while being defended by Rush Limbaugh, the standard-bearer for the Republicans.
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The answer lies in the way the two administrations handled criticism.
The Bush administration, I believed, simply chose to ignore my warnings, perhaps because of a brutal combination of ideology, fecklessness and complacency.
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President Obama’s team, unlike Bush’s team, demonstrates a thinness of skin that shocks me. When I somewhat obviously and empirically judged that the populist Obama administration is exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies, as evidenced by the incredible decline in the averages since his inauguration, I was met immediately with condescension and ridicule rather than constructive debate or even just benign dismissal.
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The markets thought he could stop it; hence the giant relief rally when he was elected. But in fewer than 50 days of his ascendancy, the markets’ hopes were totally dashed and the averages are now forecasting the worst decline since the Great Depression. As someone who listens to what the averages are screaming, I think they are accurately predicting the future.
I welcome any serious exchange with the administration on the issues that are not beyond my ken: fixing house price depreciation, stopping the destruction of wealth as demonstrated by the stock market’s plunge, and solving the banking crisis before we nationalize every bank.
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It’s time to get serious. It’s time to take the issue from the pundits and from the left and right, and put it where it belongs: serious non-ideological debate to put out the real firestorm, the collapse of the economy from Wall Street to Main Street and the ensuing Great Wealth Destruction for all.
But if it stays ad hominem, we will all be betrayed and the train wreck will become inevitable.
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The inept politicians from both sides of the aisle have destroyed the investments of most people. And, all we get from them is “spend more” and “borrow more”.
STOP!
You’re putting future generations in a hole they will never get out of.
Let the failures go bankrupt. Tough medicine.
We are training future generations NOT to invest.
I’ve had two conversations that are noteworthy.
A young woman has pulled out of her 401k because the losses have eaten into her employer’s contribution and hers. A doctor is moving from equities to bonds and his “financial advisor” at the brokerage house thought it was a good idea (i.e., he gets a commission on trades; not results).
The Market’s P/E ratio is either in or going into the single digits. (Last time that happened the market doubled in a year!) The “natural recovery” from a downturn has already begun. See the uptick in home sales as the “affordability” measure is it’s lowest in decades.
Note to O: (1) Reinstate the uptick rule. (2) Aim the corporate beggars to the bankruptcy courts. (3) Grab your various regulators and ask them to resign. (4) Eliminate Federal guarantees of ARMs, Interest only, and any mortgage that’s not 20% down 30 year fixed “conforming”. (4) Tell the FBI anf your Federal Prosecutors you want some FRAUD convictions for all the bad paper. (5) Tell the SBA that you want a plan to stimulate small business by the end of the day.
Cut the spending, cut the debt, cut the waste.
Argh!
Like that’s ever going to happen!
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 