Okay, by now I guess everybody watched the “duel” between “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer and TV comedian Jon Stewart. Looks like everybody declared Jon the winner, but I think this is similar to the tagline of “Aliens vs Predator”: “Whoever wins… we lose”. Primarily we lost time watching this pointless debate.
Did this confrontation solve anything? Is there anybody left on earth that didn’t know yet that CNBC generally functions as an amplifier of market movements? Does anybody really believe that now that somebody officially “exposed” them, they are going to change their ways? Puh-lease.
CNBC will do whatever gives them the highest audience. Whatever happens to be the latest boom in the markets, they will go out and find as many cheerleaders as they can, both for the upside and the downside. Right now they have douches like Roubini and Jim Rogers on heavy rotation. Once the market turned around it will be whoever happened to have correctly “guessed”, pardon me, “forecasted” that particular development.
To really be a helpful voice amongst all the cacophony already in the markets, they would have to go against the prevailing trend. For example, during the next housing bubble they’d have to bring in people throwing buckets of ice water in the feverish face of speculators and advertisers. Does anybody really believe that this is what is going to happen? Doing this would give the average audience the feeling that CNBC has it wrong all the freaking time, and sooner or later they would not have much of an audience left. It also wouldn’t help very much if years later, after everything collapsed, they come out and say “But hey, we told you so”. Nobody ever likes to hear that when sitting on smoldering ruins, even if the person saying it did tell them so.
No, the ones who have to change are not CNBC or Cramer.
WE have to change.
We have to stop believing that anybody out there has all the answers. Not Cramer, not Santelli, not Obama, not Roubini, not anybody. We have to stop looking for simple explanations to extremely complex issues. We actually have to start thinking for ourselves instead of acting on the advice of people on TV shows.
Reality is, nobody has a clue what’s going on, but everybody has an opinion. Whoever happened to have guessed something right is then touted in the media as the one who saw it all coming. And of course, their explanations always make sense. But then, during the next market turn, once these “experts” are proven wrong, they will be left in the dust, to be replaced with more recently correct cheer- or gloomleaders.
Of course, flip-floppers like Cramer and CNBC will always be there. They are always right because their opinions change with the wind. And no Jon Stewart will ever be able to do anything about this, unless he figures out a way to change human nature.
