Mad Man

When the four fat cat bankers sat down behind a Congressional microphone this week, network news producers held their collective breath. This was to be one of those moments; a pissed off public would find its release through a relentless grilling delivered by their elected officials.

Of course, that was never going to happen. The bankers knew they held the ultimate trump card. If pressed too hard on their role in setting the world financial markets on fire, all they needed to do was turn and ask Congress why it lit the match. After all, once Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 (details here), everything that followed was inevitable. Including the 'perfect storm' defense from the bankers, who claimed that they were victims of circumstance, helplessly incapable of seeing the conditions that surrounded them. In fact, Michael Lewis has made a compelling case that these bankers are not ignorant, simply powerless to prevent the kinds of criminality that fuel their own bonuses:

"...when extremely smart people (find) extremely complicated ways to make huge sums of money, the typical Wall Street boss has seldom bothered to fully understand the matter, to challenge and question and argue. This isn't because Wall Street CEOs are lazy, or stupid. It's because they are trapped. The Wall Street CEO can't interfere with the new new thing on Wall Street because the new new thing is the profit center, and the people who create it are mobile. Anything he does to slow them down increases the risk that his most lucrative employees will quit and join another big firm, or start their own hedge fund. He isn't a boss in the conventional sense. He's a hostage of his cleverest employees."

But this doesn't mean the week was entirely devoid of entertainment because Wall Street, as always, could rely on its manic mascot, Jim Cramer, for a good laugh. After all, they don't call his cable show Mad Money without reason. Cramer embodies the three traits that television values most: he's obnoxious, he's self-absorbed, and he's stupid. Think of an American Idol where the judges are also the contestants. That's Cramer.

But what set his performance apart mid-week was the whopping dollop of hypocrisy which he ladled on top of his typical steaming pile of misinformation. His topic was how joblessness is actually a good thing--at least for investors. Because every time a job is shifted from an American citizen to a lower paid worker overseas, a share of someone's stock increases. The way he said it, it almost sounded like that sweet moment in It's a Wonderful Life when the little girl said that 'every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings'. (But of course, that's a bad example, because I'm sure when he watched the movie, Cramer thought the mean old banker in the wheelchair was the hero). In any case, Cramer came across just as blunt and cruel as this sounds--little people losing their jobs is a fair price to pay if it means a rich person can get a dollar richer. Sorry folks, that's just how a free market is supposed to work.

Except.

Except...

There was the priceless Cramer moment at the very height of the financial panic when the Mad Man truly earned his moniker. Even for someone who lives over the top, this performance was historic. His spittle filled the air. The veins in his skull seemed poised to pop. The occasion for this rant of rants was the collapse of Bear Stearns. Tens of thousands of investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars--these are the people whose interests Cramer lives to protect. Except that these investors were not in his thoughts this day. Instead, he was melting down at the sight of poor investment bankers thrust out on the street, carrying their belongings in simple cardboard boxes. "My people have been in this game for 25 years--and they're LOSING THEIR JOBS!!" (And those upper case letters are not hyperbole. He was screaming--literally, screaming). He thundered that the government had better step in and prevent any further shutdowns on Wall Street...before more of his 'people' were sent packing. The feds had to understand--people were losing their jobs!

Well, sorry, Jim. That's just how a free market is supposed to work.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "the rich are different from you and me", to which Ernest Hemingway supposedly replied, "Yes--they have more money".

But too, they also have the craven and compromised Jim Cramer. Right in their deep pocket.