There are moments where I despair for the fate of this country, because it seems to me that we operate from completely different sets of realities based on the same set of facts. Unfortunately, Jim Cramer exemplifies this kind of "make-your-own-reality" within the media. You'd think he'd have learned after his humiliation on The Daily Show. But no, Jim Cramer unabashedly keeps blurring the lines between business reporting and market advocacy.
Cramer came on Hardball on Friday to insist that Wall Street just hates Obama's guts and they're just waiting for that cuddly Republican to get into office before they unleash all those jobs we all know they have. It's all that taxation and regulations that mean ol' Barack Obama insists on inflicting on Wall Street.
CRAMER: Okay, first, I’m going to agree with you, that the market has been fabulous, which is one of the reasons I’m always so astonished when people tell me that the problem is Obama. I mean, it’s clear Washington can be dysfunctional, but Democrats and Republicans not getting together. But when you get offline with CEOs, it’s not just Wall Street, but Industrial America, what they tend to say is, listen, we want to add, we want to hire, we want to grow in the United States, but everything is so up in the air and when it gets to the point where we’re thinking about what Washington’s going to do, we know we’re going to be the loser if President Obama is making the decision, because President Obama does not favor wealth creation and corporate profits. Not, the profits are huge. People have made a lot of money, but that is the rap that I hear.
MATTHEWS: What is it particularly when a banker or a rich guy, anybody who’s got to make thse big decisions—well, let’s look at some of these numbers first, because I think they’re really informative. When President Obama took office January 20th, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7949. Today, it closed at 11, 509, up from yesterday. That’s a 31% increase since Obama’s been president. Well, that alone sould be, wow, this guy’s good. And then there’s corporate profits. The New York Times cites a study by Northeastern University, and economist reports, “since the recovery began in June of 2009, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of that growth.” This is the stuff that causes revolutions, from the bottom, not from the top.
[..]
CRAMER: Look, I’m telling you that when you get off the desk with them, they really just feel like, look, if we got a Republican in there, we could really do a great thing in this country by hiring a lot of people.
My rage meter at Cramer's gleeful dishonesty is just redlining. CEOs are telling him privately that they're just waiting for a Republican in the White House to hire people while Americans suffer through massive unemployment? Well then NAME NAMES, Cramer, you dishonest jerk, and tell us just which CEOs are telling you this and who are acting so treasonously. Because Chris Matthews--to his credit, since you apparently don't believe in offering up these facts to these business owners--pointed out all the reasons that Obama could hardly be considered anti-business. These asses were bailed out by American taxpayers, posted record profits, pocketed nice little bonuses...but they need a Republican in the White House to pass that largesse back to the Americans? Well to put it bluntly, eff that.
And eff Cramer and his ridiculous advocacy for Republican lies.
But I have to give kudos to Chris Matthews for having facts on hand to show the lies and propaganda of Cramer's statements. Look how very differently Cramer was received earlier that day on Morning Joe.
