Brilliant! Bravo! This show will be seen as a watershed moment of this whole sorry episode in the financial crisis. Now if only Jon could get Rush Limbaugh on his show!

It's ironic..Cramer made those videos to expose wall street's shenanigans but he's the one being put in the public square to be burnt at the stakes.

Video link that flies in the face of Cramer's representing the average investor...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfWSRuNm6do&feature=related

It is very easy to beat on Cramer, but very hard for folks to be reflective as to their own duplicity. How many people asked, "How in the hell could my house be worth so much in such a short time?". No body said "How could prices keep going up when incomes are stagnant?" Many years ago, there was a book written called, "Where Are the Customers' Yatchs", which is a scathing rebuke of the financial industry, written the year of Cramer's birth.

But you know what is hard? Listening. Pull the tape on the "Fast Money" show from 03/06/09. One of the analysts made the case for the ETF FAS. Well today, that ETF is up 80+%.

As with most things, many in America are too stupid or too lazy to do their own homework.

I hope you all feel better that Cramer got his "ass kicked". Did it get your 401K back to even? Did it get your house out from being underwater?

It was a TKO for Stewart. He couldn't have exposed these criminals any better in those 12 minutes.

Nice one Maurice, yet another manipulative post trying to "share the blame". Cramer as well as most of the crooks on Wall Street deserved this and more, in fact jail might be a bit more of the kind of reward these crooks deserve. Methinks your pained post might lead me to believe that you yourself work for Wall Street, if that is the case worry not, only Madoff will likely go to jail.

It is profoundly disingenuous, not to mention arrogant to try to blame the listening skills of people for the state of the economy when everyone knows that for YEARS we were bombarded with clowns like this telling us that capitalism was nearly flawless. By the way it may not solve anything but bringing these criminals to task does indeed create a very necessary discussion that our corporate media will never truly engage in. That collective outrage has been known to change a thing or two in history. Here is hoping... Oh and before you get bent out of shape and personally attacked remember what Stewart said "I Betcha Think This Song Is About You" well its not and Cramer could not mount his own defense. That is ultimately an admission of guilt.

But in any case here is hoping, in a much kinder way than yours, that americans will wake up to the reality of a market system based on greed for a minority which got out of control.

to all those that treat Stewart as if he does not posses or use the skills of a great reporter, this episode should wake you up. Thanks for holding Cramer's feet to the fire

An Incredible, unBelievable tv news interview experience. I haven't seen this kind of serious, brutal journalism ... well, EVER. I'm forty and grew up in the age of corporate news ownership.

Even PBS has been overtaken by an obsession with widely-held charlatans like Deepak Chopra and Ekhart Tolle.

This night was better than Stewart vanquishing Carlson. I think I had a Meg Ryan deli moment. It was That good.

Can the 'entertainers' at CNBC feel shame? Prob'ly not. But if Cramer keeps his promise, I'll be the first to watch him.

Got a cigarette?

The sad part is, will this take a penny out of the pockets of the Goldman, Merrill Lynch, AIG or any of the other Wall Street crooks that bent this country over the barrell?

Cramer was right when he said "Where are the indictments?" It pains me to say it, but we have no bulldog prosecutors anymore.

And watch, Madoff will end up at a country-club low security prison in Danbury.

Enjoy the good feeling that you got when Jon Stewart tore apart a marginal TV Economy Commentator. That is all the Regular Joe is going to get back from this catastrophe.

Jon Stewart is great, and although i find Cramer likable, he deserved the thrashing.

My question: why are we getting the most responsible, hard-hitting and revealing journalism from a comedian? What's with the mainstream news media failing so utterly to examine these issues in a compelling and responsible way?

I thought Cramer was about to break down and cry a couple of times. Stewart skewered him.

Jon,
I was sooo!! waiting for this giant can of whoopass on this Cramer jackass!!
Thank you Thank you Thank you

Willybfreed

Jon Stewart is one of the only real journalists in America today.

To feel bad for Jim Cramer is bizarre. People have lost millions in hard earned money and Jim Cramer is part of this whole collapse. As Jon Stewart so eloquently put it, "This isn't a fucking game." This truly is a great moment in television history. It is incredibly powerful and I wish more people would expose these assholes like Jim Cramer as harshly as Stewart did.

Cramer was a bit unprepared for the sound bite game in my opinion. Now I watch Cramer's show and the Daily show so I have to say both have their own agendas... Cramer does have alot of CEOs and guests that get on their to drum up their stock. Of course they'd only mention positive stuff about their company (wouldn't you if you were on a show to talk about your business to a million plus customers that had control of your success). So I talk his advice as just advice, not gospel.

I just wish the main street folks would quit playing innocent. If they weren't greedy and trying to make more money than the 5% a CD gets they'd not have this problem. I remember reading once that alot of people knew Maddoff was up to something but wanted "in" so they could make the profit as well. People need to realize if they want to make profits in the market they should do their research and stop trying to make a quick buck.

So now that Stewart has bashed Cramer, he should start pulling in all of the other characters.... Suze Orman for telling people to invest in their 401ks, Robert Kiyosaki for telling people to buy real estate, and whoever else tried to teach main streeters how to make their quick buck in investing. Let's keep those torches out there looking for anyone that told us to follow our greed because that will make us feel better. That will make our lives better.

When is Jon Stewart going to have the rest of the "experts" on the show who made bad calls. I mean I want him to really tear into people!!!!! I want blood!!! People like Warren Buffett! oh, Warren hasn't been critical of Obama? I guess he's not a target then. There are very FEW folks who saw a crisis of this magnitude coming. Not THIS bad.

Stewart is waaaay off base and out of line here. Could you be any more sactamonious or self-righteous? I don't think so.

IF anyobody deserves to be lambasted publically its people like RICH DAD POOR DAD "guru" who has mislead more people and PROFITS OFF OF IT DAILY with his seminars and books.

Stewart your bias for Obama is as bad as Olberman and Maddow and it shows clearly.

Nobody held anyone's feet to the fire to put their money into the stock market or buy a home. Are you all sheep? I feel sorry for none of you. If you don't know how to swim do you jump in the ocean? Stop blaming everyone for your mistakes. Is Cramer a dirtbag? Of course he is. My question for Jon Stewart is where is the interview with Barney Frank and the rest of the crooked democrats. I don't recall that "interview". Like when Frank said there was nothing wrong with Freddie/Fannie or how he fought legislation to regulate those entities when proposed by Republicans. Don't misunderstand me...Bush and his ilk were worse...but where is the balanced "journalism". If he feels it is CNBC responsibility to police WallStreet and do better journalism maybe he should follow his own advice. But whatever, LOL at Cramer getting creamed. This could end his career...and I watch him so...

@jonathan

I work my ass off at a 9-5 and save up enough to buy a house; I go to the bank, whom I consider to be the investment processionals, and they tell me that they'll gladly give me a mortgage that's completely outside my means because their analysis shows I'm good for it. I'm skeptical, so I go home and do some research watching CNBC, the other investment professionals, and I get 24 hours of shouting heads telling me that I should invest everything I have into houses or stocks and that only an idiot would sit this out. How exactly do you think I should react in this hypothetical?

You can't spend decades telling people that capitalism is a glittering wealth machine and then blame them when they put their trust in it. You can't blame Frank and Dodd for this mess and then say that the way out is deregulation.

"If he feels it is CNBC responsibility to police WallStreet and do better journalism maybe he should follow his own advice."

This is the biggest point people seem to be missing, and Stewart repeats it every night - he's an entertainer. He's specifically picked a guy like Cramer and the assholes at CNBC (or Tucker and Cross-Fire) because they're easy to mock while still making a point. In fact, if Barney Frank did go on the Daily Show, it would be of no significance precisely because Stewart is a comedian. This is like those 20/20 clips Jon Stossel used to run where he'd bust a school for suspending a child with a candy cane under a no-tolerance weapons policy, and you complaining that he's not restructuring the educational system.

Are our real TV and cable news journalists all stupid? Corrupt?
Why is it Stewart can ask the questions that normal people want answered?
Why does everybody else just repeat the same party line talking points that turn every issue into mush?
So many “news” stations, so much air time, and we are so ill-served.

Very well written article. But like the Pope? You mighthave gone too far with that one. Everything else was great.

After Cramer got lambasted, what CEO or financial analyst in their right mind would go on TDS?

Cramer committed professional suicide by showing up. It would have been better for him to allow Stewart to blast him on the show because eventually TDS would have had to move on to other things.

I wonder what Cramer's colleagues at CNBC thought of the interview. And I bet Brian Williams won't say anything about it - although CBS probably will.

America, circa 2009:

Our finest journalist is a comedian.

Our finest journalists are a joke.

That some of you folks are criticizing Stewart (comedian) for a failure to thoroughly enough "investigate" other people (i.e. do a journalist's job) illustrates this as well as anything could, and validates Stewart's overall point: the ostensible "financial journalists" (read: jokes) don't do the job they claim they do half as well as someone whose ostensible job is to "make fart noises and funny faces."

And then in come the CNBCycophants, to complain that a comedian isn't being a good enough journalist. Kinda like getting mad at the sportscaster for not telling you to bring an umbrella because it's likely to rain.

That was the most beautiful 12 minutes of television journalism I have ever seen. If Palin thinks Katie was tough on her, she should watch this interview. Thank you Jon Stewart for doing what no one else even thought to do. Your clips were incredible and Cramer almost cried or tried to but couldn't. I guess Cramer is not that good of an actor. He had his ass handed to him and it's my guess the NBC told him to eat crow to make this go away. No one gets paddled that hard without putting up a fight and he had nothing to offer other than deflection and lies. Jon busted him on each lie. Great television and so unexpected. Jon could easily run the nightly news after that, and I wish he would. Listen up news stations and the big three, give us real reporting and leave the fluff pieces to Access Hollywood and E!

What huge irony. The ONLY hard hitting professional journalism in America, night after night, is from a self-described fake news show. It's not just CNBC, it's ALL of the "main-stream" media journalists. They're not asleep at the switch, they're part and parcel of the problem.

It took a comedian to expose the hiprocracy of MSNBC and their post child of emotional lunacy, Jim Cramer. Now, MSNBC should fire him.

OMG! Last night's interview will stay with me for a very long time. I have been a huge Jon Stewart fan for years...but last night, I too had a Meg Ryan moment that I wish could last a lifetime. I know that Jon is a happily married man and father (which makes him very sexy)...so where can I find his clone? Brilliant job! And to anyone else out there thinking of taking him on (Joe Scarborough) DON'T FUCK with Jon---he will not back down from a fight and he speaks for a lot of us!!!

To LR--when it was all over...I DID have a post-coital cigarette! It felt good!

Cramer took a beating. Please someone must now go after Suze "disturbingly white teeth" Orman. Her hucksterism makes Cramer look like an amateur. Her home spun "tell it to me girlfriend" garbage is very disingenuous. The "Buy and Hold" strategy has been shown to be a disaster. You can ad the Rich Dad, Poor Dad goof to the list of charlatans.

401k's are optional, you don't have to put your money into them. Stock traders who watch the show "Mad Money" know that it is "Buy and homework" not "Buy and hold" (a phrase repeated by Jim Cramer in his books and on his show). Anybody would be fool to think that prices will rise forever on any asset. Fools who think as such are called speculators. Speculators got burned in 1720, 1901, 1929, 2009, and they will get burned again.

There is a quote that comes to mind from the book "The Great Crash 1929". "Most people who were ruined in the crash were swindled not by heralds from Wall St. but by themselves."

Read that book. We aren't done. Sell while you can. Summer will bring us to 5,000. We will recover but we have at least another year. If I am wrong it will be a blessing.

What is SO SO sad in this whole thing that you have to go to COMEDY Central to get a hard hitting interview. Yes yes there are people on both sides of the aisle that deserve blame in this whole mess. DEMS and REPS are both in the same party as far as I am concerned.

Yes as postings before said people are responsible for their own actions. True enough.

That being said when you have the alleged god like character Allen GreenSpan telling you your home equity is the untapped miracle of the new century well yes you could say know but c'mon Alan Greenspan said it!

Cramer has said things recently Stewart missed that was an all out fabrication of what he had said earlier.

Again its hilarious to me that The Daily Show is the one breaking news and calling people out.

That includes the mainstream media soft balling Obama. Ask EVERYBODY the hard questions...

OK..... Enough

It's time to take down Rush Limbaugh, although if heads the party the Republicans may never return to power

Whoever wrote this POS article is a joke, just like CNBC, MSNBC and CNN. Where was Stewart when Crooked Homo Barney Frank make some of the same statements about Fannie and Freddy? Is this the voice of the mentally challenged?

Maurice:

"FAS is up 80+%", which universe do you live in? Its 52-week high was 32.68 and it is now trading at 5 bucks. It is true that it had a little run-up in the last few days, but have you heard of the phrase "even a dead cat bounces?"

Howie

Jon Stewart (Leibowitz) is a complete tool! Cramer says 100s of times during his show - DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

And what does Stewart want from CNBC - some stoogy boring talking head that reads while a ticker of prices scrolls below them? CNBC is on the air for 17 hrs - they have to provide some ENTERTAINMENT! Its all about ratings - does he get that?

I like Cramer and think he provides great insite into the market. Does he always get it right - NO! Is he wrong - YES.....lots of wall street traders missed this one too.....

I say Stewart should worry about his show and his next JOKE - not what CNBC is talking about.......

Cramer says 100s of times during his show - DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

What a wussy disclaimer. Then why watch his show in the first place?

People watch his show because it's entertaining. Like TDS it uses real world events and news as a hook to entertain. Maybe Stewart needs to add a "this isn't really news" disclaimer to his show because lots of people I know watch his show to get the news. Of course he does throw out that disclaimer when it suits him and he doesn't want to be held to the standard of journalist. Cramer's only gaffe was failing to concede that he's an entertainer. I'm sorry but calling a plastic toy throwing, rant-making celebrity on the carpet just doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. Ooooh...a TV personality took a beating for promoting stocks. That's like browbeating Stanley Kaplan because SAT scores are down. Like he has anything to do with that or that asking him tough questions leads to any beneficial result. The celebration over this proves that people are totally clueless about the markets and what makes them work and how they make (and lose) money by investing in them. That's pretty much all this proves and that's all that Stewart managed to expose.

Maurice, I'm guessing you made out like a damn bandit while millions of lower middle class and middle class folks watched their own money, not appreciation or earnings, disappear before their eyes...I think we all bought into the bullshit of acquiring "wealth" and that was our mistake, but we didn't realize we were dealing with criminals. So, shoot us. No, never mind that...you already did. Aren't we all so glad that we didn't let Bush/Cheney/Paulson/Greenspan or whoever get hold of Social Security too? Whatever money we little folks had was never enough for them. And now they accuse us of bad decisions? We may be stupid, but not that stupid. Try to wrest our money from us next time.

All I can say is, I'm sure glad social security wasn't allowed to be handed over to Wall Street when GW was pushing that.

Because the point that people keep missing here is not that you should keep doing your homework so you don't lose your ass, and not that markets won't keep rising forever. It's that WHEN they tank, there will always be people left holding the shitbag. It's that big of a roll of the dice. Like musical chairs.

I've always been skeptical of Wall Street, they're just carnival barkers. Like my mom always says, if it looks too good to be true, it is. We sure can see that the greedy and corrupt have taken over the system. Time to scrap the whole thing and start over with a better plan.

I agree that Stewart is ironically (despite his own protestations) one of our best journalists today, but it is partly because he does some things that 'serious' journalists can't...

First off, of course, is his ability to make fun of the people he's talking about. 'Serious' journalists couldn't do that.
And then there's Stewart's wonderful use of expletives. When he says things like '[expletive] you', or 'you're an [expletive]', we all know what's being said under the bleeps, of course. Needless to say, 'serious' journalists couldn't get away with doing this - there would be a huge uproar, the 'public' would call for their heads on a platter, and the big media tycoons would be more than happy to oblige. By using the expletives, Stewart is really expressing what most Americans are really feeling about these people, but are too afraid to say. Of course he could say 'screw you' or ' you're a jerk' instead, but there are times when the full force of expletives are really needed (bleeped or not), and these times certainly call for them.

But more than expletives, these times call for daring journalists, not 'serious' journalists. We need journalists who investigate, not parrot the corporate line. We need journalists who report for the public, not for the giant conglomerates than own their networks.

Many thanks to Stewart for his daring, for not towing the line, and for calling these corporate [expletives] out!

i was a bit disappointed that this "brawl street" interview was just stewart kneeing cramer in the proverbial nuts as cramer just sat there like a little pu$$y. lame. these guys are entertainers, and they failed to entertain.

stewart's completely off base with his accusations against cramer's show and cnbc as a whole. granted, cramer is probably the most annoying tv personality i've seen, but some people find him entertaining which is why they watch his show. anyone who actually takes investment advice from a tv show is just lazy or an idiot, and should not blame cnbc for their own lack of judgment. and cnbc does report the news as it unfolds throughout the trading day, and can't be expected to predict the future of the economy. only a handful of economists and analysts correctly called this downturn, and even they didn't foresee the full extent of it.

therefore, lesson learned from this pathetic display- people should stop looking to stewart for hard-hitting journalism and to cramer for financial advice. they're just there to entertain.

Well, as long as the American people choose to be STUPID, these are the results we will get.

What we have are the vestiges of a capitalist economy still running on the steam of the post WWII boom that has been inflated by monetary bullshit by the Federal Reserve who prints money to feed the demands of the dumbass Marxists who believe that printed money or make-work is the same as capital growth and the bullshit tax cuts that allow Republicans to lie to their constituents about the kind of economy we live in, a welfare state driven by whatever has the proletariat apeshit at the moment.

The Republican party only has two(2) folks who I am sure are conservative and those are Ron Paul and Jeff Sessions. The rest are fascist neocons. Sadly, America is like an alcoholic who is going to have to hit bottom before they can get better...not because they have to hit bottom, but because that is the only place from which an alcoholic can see the light of day for what it is. Another analogy is a user who bounces between uppers(neocons) and downers(marxists who like to call themselves liberals.)

As for Cramer? He is an entertainer, you freaking morons! Anybody who gets their investment advice from the TV deserves what they get! Study the company! Read the financials! Understand the ***king business before you put money into it!

Other than that, the current situation is because of collusion between bankers and whatever party is in power at the time and you guys are choosing to ignore facts if you blame it just on the last 8 or 16 or even 24 years.

Cramer was so scared because he doesn't want to expose the scandles and everything that goes on behind closed doors but John Stewart already effing knew about everything. That was crazy :-) its definatily one of the most interesting things i've seen on tv. idk its just different ^_^

If you invest money, you alone are responsible for it. If you buy a house, you alone are responsible for paying the mortgage.

It's easy to blame others for our shortcomings; it somehow makes us feel better about everything. Blow the blame on someone else, so I can sleep tonight.

Quit throwing stones and bear a little responsibility. Don't blame TV people for your successes or failures. Believe me, they don't care about you.