An individual’s experiences greatly influence how he views things. Reactions to the Cramer interview are great examples of that. With that in mind, here’s a summary of my experience and my views on the subject.
I worked at a tech company during the internet bubble and experienced the boom and bust. During the boom time, when our stock was high, representatives from large investment banks would visit our company. Most times they would try to sell themselves as experts on managing our money. Other times, the would pitch hedge funds to us. These hedge funds were “exclusive” deals (e.g. $500k minimum investment) and they promised ungodly returns.
If you remember the boom times, you’d see experts on TV picking stocks and setting price targets that didn’t make any sense. Experts would say that P/E’s don’t matter any more … “Burn rate” was more important than profit … Etc. Even Alan Greenspan took back his “irrational exuberance” comment and suggested that we were operating in a new economy.
I didn’t know anything about the stock market back then. But after the bubble went bust, I realized that virtually all of the “experts” in my world were incorrect. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the guys from the investment banks were just “used car salesmen”. They really didn’t know much at all. They just wanted to make a profit and sell you whatever crap they had. The “experts” on TV were just carnival barkers. Their purpose is to draw the public in … “Trust us with your future” … “Trust us with your 401k”.
There are guys on wall street that really do know what they are doing. The problem is that they want you to buy what they’re selling and sell what they’re buying. They’re the sharks and the general public is nothing but chum.
I came to this revelation over many years. But just recently, I read this article and realized that my conclusions were very old news:
The article was written by Michael Lewis (author of “Liar’s Poker”). It talks about his wall street work experience in the late 80’s and the sheer corruption in the system. Its a great article. You should definitely read it.
The Stewart vs. Cramer tussle really started with Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC:
Santelli goes off about Obamas plan to bail out some home owners. Granted, nobody likes to reward bad behavior with a bail out. However, the home owner bale out has to be put into perspective. The TARP bailout of wall street cost $750 billion. AIG’s bailout was $100+ billion. The CEO of Bear Stearns personally walked away with over $60 million of taxpayer bail out money. $60 million for one guy. So Obama proposes a $75 billion dollar bailout package for millions of home owners and that’s what sets Santelli off?
In Santelli’s CNBC rant, he rails against the “losers” that bought homes that they couldn’t afford. These people made stupid decisions and they should suffer the consequences. All very true.
The Daily Show responded by broadening the issue to “Why did so many people make stupid decisions?” Is it possible that CNBC (the financial news network) encourages people to make stupid financial decisions? CNBC bills itself as the place to go to for financial news. It sells itself as a place you can turn to. But what if its nothing more than a stage for the carnival barkers of wall street?
Behind wall street’s exterior is a huge con game: Gain people’s confidence and use their money to create short term profit at the expense of long term risk. Guys like Cramer and many of the other “experts” you see on TV know that its a con game. In fact they’re an important part of keeping the con going. And when it all blows up, they do their best to act surprised: “It had a one in a million chance of happening” … “This is a once in lifetime event”, etc. But as Michael Lewis points out, this con game has been going on for a very long time. A lot of people know about it. The only question is “Why isn’t it public knowledge?”.
