Ben Stein Watch: Missing the Point

The inaugural edition of the Chris Faille incarnation of BSW will take a look at this.

As you can see via that link, Ben told his reader in late March that Jim Cramer "appeared earlier this month on 'The Daily Show,' where Mr. Stewart yelled and cursed at him, saying he did not let Americans know just how serious the problems were on Wall Street."

Sorry, Ben, I don't know that. I do know that Cramer appeared on The Daily Show, but it am quite certain that to say that the host, Jon Stewart, "yelled and cursed at him," is an inept summary of the proceedings.

There was one lapse into profanity on Stewart's part, when he said "I understand that you are trying to make finance entertaining, but this is not a f***ing game."

The bleeped adjective there was used not to curse at Cramer, but to modify "game," as in "Wall Street fun and games," or to conjure up an image of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, and to express exasperation. My recall is that Stewart was rather affable, although in a somewhat gnomic fashion. Gee, how could we settle this difference in recall? With clips, perhaps?

Anyway, Ben goes on in the above column to explain that Stewart was angry at Cramer for getting predictions long. Stewart was naive about this because, Ben patiently explains, there is nobody who knows how to make reliable predictions.

There, too, Ben misses the point. By a mile. Actually, Stewart was making two good points and neither of them was simply that Cramer got some calls wrong.

Stewart's points were:

1) "Isn't there a problem selling snake oil as if its vitamin tonic?"

2) There's a difference between predicting how markets will come out -- accurately or not -- on the one hand and manipulating them on the other.

He played clips of a video Cramer made for a website called TheStreet.com, in which Cramer seemed to be bragging about having successfully manipulated prices back when he was running a hedge fund.

That's in the second of the three segments in the site to which I've linked you above.

The bottom line, though, for this edition of BSW: did Ben even watch the same show everyone else was watching?

Catching Up With Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer is scary. Personally, I'd rather watch an investment/finance television program hosted by Boris Karloff.

Cramer throws things, he shouts the world's most pointless catch-phrases (and his "boo-yah" sounds a lot like my burping, so I find the possibility that he actually means to emit that sound especially freaky) and there's a vein on his forehead that always seems about to burst.

Still, Cramer's personal story is fascinating. He's a "Citizen Cramer" figure, likely to end up alone in a mansion mouthing the name of a favorite childhood toy as he expires. So I keep coming back, if not to Cramer's show, at least to thoughts about Cramer as a symptom of ... whatever is it in the contemporary world that has made him a public figure.

For those who didn't follow the "Pisanis of the world" scandal last month, I'm loathe to review it. Here's a link to bring you up to speed, though.

http://www.slate.com/id/2162460

After all, pop culture obsessions whiz by so quickly these days we never know if we're all on the same page. What is the gossip about over your cubicle wall? Who has the best voice, or the worst voice, or the oddest hair, on American Idol? Do you debate about who'll get the estate of Anna Nicole? Or are you more concerned about the dancing talents of the soon-to-be-ex-wife of a Beatle? The intercontinental adoptions of street urchins by Hollywood starlets?

For a little while last month, the story of Jim Cramer and his indiscretions seemed to be in that elite company. This month, he has confirmed the comparison. Because, like so many such scandals, this one has just blown over, without consequence. Maybe there's another shoe yet to drop, but probably not.

If he really has survived it, then here's a boo-yah for him.