Cramer said he thought Bear Stearns was honest. HOW?

[aquart]

I thought he'd had a career on Wall Street. Did he miss the $35 million SEC settlement in 1999?

<http://www.sec.gov/news/press/pressarchive/1999/99-94.txt>

Did he miss the February 24, 1997 article in Forbes describing Bear Stearns' corrupt relationship to bucket shops? Do bad companies become good and honest because they got caught? No one at Bear went to jail for the crimes outlined in the settlement press release. No one.

[Hannah Bell]

1. short answer: he's lying. hopefully most people know it, finally.

though how they could have *not* known it from the beginning, i'll never understand.

i guess, like madoff's customers, brain switches off so long as money seems to be coming in.

[marlakay]

8. Watching him last night I felt like he was lying

about not knowing stuff was going to happen. I know people who watch his show and buy stocks based on what he says or at least they did in the past. They also watch Jon so I will have to ask what they think now.

[sam sarrha]

2. in his corrupt world that behavior is normal and accepted.. he is a ReThuglican after all

[aquart]

5. Who voted for Obama?

[stray cat]

3. When a practice is the norm and all your friends and colleagues are doing the same thing

It may have been corrupt but it may not have been illegal.

[malaise]

4. How

Because they told him so. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! :puke:

[librechik]

6. shorter answer--he's on the payroll

Was Bear Stearns or affiliates a sponsor on Cramer's show? Was he high school friends with someone there who cut him deals? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Caliman73]

7. could be...but probably more routine than that

It seems that many news and financial shows today are about access. Access seems to be more valuable than fact, truth, or integrity. The shows in those media outlets function as subsidiaries of corporations and the goal of the corporation is to gain profit. Access equals profit in the news business. You may break the "BIG story" once, but then you will be looked upon with mistrust by officials and CEO's. Yeah you nailed one big story, but now you are locked out. If you play ball, then you get access. If you shill, then you get more access and more credibility from the establishment. It all works until the system goes down, then you are outed as a lackey. I think that is what happened more than an obvious tit for tat situation.

[leftofthedial]

9. he is lying and defending his peer group

[TahitiNut]

10. Most CEOs could charm the buzzards off a gut wagon.

That's why they're there. When they WANT to, they can damned near seduce anyone ... INCLUDING the vast majority of DUers. You'd have to see it first hand to believe it. In my decades in "the belly of the beast" I came in frequent enough contact with senior executives (COO, CEO, CFO, Chairman, etc.) of Fortune 10 corporations (GM, IBM, Xerox, etc.) in a variety of settings (casual to formal) to guarantee you that it's NOT obvious and NOT easily escaped. It's NOTHING like the proverbial used-car salesman and comes off far more subtly. This is why such companies so easily become "personality cults' ... these people are REALLY good at it in personal contact situations. Really.

Above and beyond any other skill or talent, this charismatic talent is really quite remarkable. It's effectively indistinguishable from genuine, sincere, attentive, intelligent interaction ... and MAY, in fact, be exactly that at least during that time in whicc that impression is being made.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. So he's either a liar or an incompetent

Either way, he shouldn't be on the air giving advice.