I loved his comment about the bears not being bearish enough. Did you hear at the end when he said he sold all his real estate. Damn skippy! Wasn’t he promoting CFC quite recently?

Josh

When a fairly mainstream investment advisor starts advocating repudiation of loans, I think the general financial structure has started a slow collapse. This bubble bursting is going to severely stress all lender-borrower relationships. Finally we may reach the golden moment advocated by Shakespeare:

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loseth both itself and friend.
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

FWIW, I dont know whether I’d call Jim Cramer fairly mainstream he’s a raving lunatic good for shock value at best.

While i agree that he is a shock jock, I also think many of his analyses are quite rational. If he is recommending a general repudiation for underwater high LTV loans, that is probably going to be main stream behavior too. Once a sizable fraction of consumers say I don’t care for my credit rating since I have nothing more to lose, the whole credit machine may implode.

As I have always believed, Jim Cramer should be locked up for what he does and says. His advise now to every single person in the US who bought a house with an 2/28 ARM: “walk away…”

Ironically, I watched Kramers shows for the first time last night. He is entertaining I think. I think he was mocking the bearish people with his initial piece and constant shots back at it throughout the show. He is clearly bearish on RE, but so is everyone else at this point. It is one thing to walk away from a bad stock, and another to walk away from a bad loan.

He is very bullish on CAT which is not a stock that would rise in an economic malaise, so this is where you have to take his comments in context. I know many want to believe that he also thinks the world will end, but that was not my take from his comments last night.

I think he is a pretty sharp guy, who has a entertaining style and I will probably watch him more. However, I will not take any of his trades as I make my own decisions there and always will.

His advise now to every single person in the US who bought a house with an 2/28 ARM: “walk away…”

No, he said when you’re upside down by 20%, it doesn’t matter if you are prime or sub-prime, wealthy or not, it makes more sense to walk away from the loan than go bankrupt.