I have three points and I'll try to be as concise as I can.

1. I'd like to recommend that we stop talking about free markets, and stop accusing people of hypocrisy for not staying true to their "free market" principles. I'll concede that there are plenty of nuts who believe in the power of "free market" with religious zeal, but most people understand that it's just an idea. Few people, and honestly few members of the punch bowl caucus, believe that the goal of our financial and monetary policies should be to aspire to the "free-est possible market." In fact, we only have serious financial policy and serious monetary policy because there's been a broad-based consensus, since at least the great depression but probably going back earlier, that the results "free markets" produce are not always desirable. When executives and financiers call for action from the federal government or the federal reserve, they're not breaking form. Those with economic interests will try to lobby the government to further those interests. Sometimes that means asking the government for less welfare and lower taxes (an people will use free market ideologies to push this agenda, but it's not about the ideology, it's about your economic interests). Sometimes it means asking for rate cuts or subsidies. This ain't a revolutionary view.

2. Not everything is a conspiracy. Too many left-liberal types (I say this as an old fashioned leftist/progressive, whatever) are too quick to blame every economic problem on the malfeasance of corporate executives. In fact, poor people suffer in America because our economy and our government (yes, I agree that these two items are actually inseparable) are not particularly friendly to poor people. That's a fundamental problem with our version of capitalism and the sink-or-swim state, it's not an ephemeral problem caused by predatory lenders, loose credit standards, or even interest rates, although in the short-term at least, high rates can have a profoundly damaging effect on the poor, especially the seven million odd poor folks with little money and bad credit who got mortgages over the last 2 years. A recession brought about by the declining value of real estate, our wobbly credit system, and the fact that the homebuilding business, the mortgage-broker business, the mortgage lender business, and the real estate agent business are going under. These are all businesses that employ large numbers of low to middle income white-collar service professionals, and many of them could soon be unemployed (the brokers and money managers on wall street are, I believe, too few to really matter here). A recession will be bad for everyone. Cutting interest rates could, in many ways, help avert this potential recession. That would be good for everyone, not just a cabal of incredibly wealthy financiers and executives.

I know it's jarring to believe that in some instances the economic interests of the rich and the poor are the same, but you'll find that this is frequently the case. A rate cut that saves Angelo Mozillo's portfolio can also make it possible for ordinary people to continue making their mortgage payments rather than going into default. In fact, preventing these millions of regular people from defaulting on their loans is precisely why mortgage lenders will be "bailed out" if we get a rate cut. I don't think that millions of foreclosures will necessarily create a nationwide economic emergency, but I don't see any reason to to test this thesis by leaving rates steady. As far as I can tell, the argument against cutting rates is that we need to make sure these lenders and hedge funds that have already lost fortunes and can in no way recover in the short to medium-term to where they were even two or three months no matter what anyone in any level of government does, are adequately chastened for making foolish decisions. Does anyone believe that these guys aren't already pretty chastened? Almost every single mortgage lender in America has had to stop issuing mortgages for some substantial period of time this year, they had to close their doors sometimes for weeks, you think they didn't learn their lesson? And even if the elites haven't learned anything, stop fixating on them! In order to adequately punish Angelo Mozillo, the CEO of Countrywide Finance, the largest mortgage lender (or at least, that was true a couple months ago) in America, we'll have to make sure one or two million people lose their homes. I don't understand how professional commentators or people on the internet can spend two seconds thinking about the proper fate for Mozillo when millions of regular people could lose their homes. As a country we are obsessed with making sure our elites get what's coming to them, and we think we're populists for acting this way despite our total indifference to what happens to the people, at least in comparison to how much we value justice against the elites.

3. As for Jim Cramer, anyone who's watched that full video, or any of his other stop trading appearances, or his television show, would know that he wasn't pleading for help for his wall street or CEO buddies (full disclosure: he's my uncle and my employer, so feel free to write off all my comments about him). He's said over and over again that he doesn't care about the rich, but he would like to make sure millions of people don't lose their homes. Just because the guy has a show on CNBC about stocks doesn't mean he's some kind of free-market satan. Mad Money is full of comments about how we live in a plutocracy, or how we have a government of by and for the corporation, and yes, often the critique that these are bad things comes out too. They also send stocks higher. It's possible to have a professional interest in ridiculous anti-competitive policies gifted by the government to the businesses its most friendly with, and also believe that these are bad policies. And yes, Cramer says this stuff. Also, the guy's a lifelong democrat who quotes more Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao (if usually ironically) than any dozen talking heads put together, even any hundred talking heads put together. Cramer's take on capitalism, or late stage capitalism as it happens, is unabashedly rooted in marxist thought, if not at in marxist politics.

I have to believe that the rest of the media just doesn't remember this stuff from college, so it all goes every their heads and Cramer becomes a capitalist monster even though he's got the most populist message and agenda of anyone on T.V. (I want to educate you about money so that you can stop being taken advantage of by the professionals, and start making yourself a lot more of it--yeah, what an elitist)!

They cost all of us, especially the true poor at the bottom, that can't even qualify for a sleazy mortgage, and must rent. It might be different if this government practiced any fiscal discipline, but we've been running large deficits for the past five years. The Baby Boomers are planning to retire soon, and the well is running dry. The dollar has already crashed to 30-year lows against other major currencies and oil is $72/barrel-quadruple what it was in 1999. Our financial position has reversed 180 degrees since Clinton's last years, and we need to return to his tax hike on the rich of 1993. I wonder what kind of a Marxist you and your uncle can be if you believe in this trickle-down stuff. Maybe a big part of Marxism's failure is that so many ex-Marxists ended up in government and on Wall Street-- who are destroying the country.

You say the mortgage guys are "chastened". Well, that isn't good enough. We need to make sure it won't happen again, which is why we need some governmental oversight on lending standards. We need banks to hold higher reserves so they don't fail and cause another S & L bailout. We need to abolish the Kooky mortgages of recent years--Negative Am, No downpayment, ridiculous teaser-rate ARMs. There has to be a correction in the ridiculous home prices if this is to occur. Aint no way of getting around it. Else, it's Inflation City.

You remember whom inflation hurts, right?

I won't discuss Cramer, whom I'm not familiar, however I will call BS on point 2. While I'm sure some people are calling for blood and retribution against "the Man", it isn't everyone and those calling for blood, myself included, are doing it to discourage people from making the same mistakes over and over and over. Yes, without pain people won't learn from their mistakes. Bailouts won't solve the underlying and fundamental problem that caused the situation in the first place - bad fiscal policy.

More offshoring of jobs and productive capacity. More stagnant wages. More debt people can't afford. More ridiculous CEO guaramteed wages and epic investment banker bonuses for gambling with other people's money and more insider trading scams of the latest flavor. More private equity LBOs destroying companies through management sell out pirate raids. More fed injected liquidity and deregulation.

That is the kind of thing we can use less of.

As for Cramer, he's a media whore, plain and simple. He knows the rules.

Rule #1 of Financial Meltdown Recovery -Don't drink the Kool-Aid!

Wealth doesn't automatically "trickle down"; neither does pain. Unless the hedge funds and private equity firms encounter consequences beyond their calculations, this is just the beginning. Holding the grossly rich responsible for their profit-taking at the expense of all consumers doesn't necessarily mean the little guys will lose their houses, anymore than increasing profit margins necessarily means that the little guys get raises and share the wealth. Making that kind of assumption isn't really logical - it's the effect of great marketing. Now put down the Kool-Aid before it really kills you.

Risk is not a bad thing - it theoretically keeps the markets honest. The less-credit worthy people at the bottom pay higher rates for their loans because of the risk. Sadly, the guys at the top - Kudlow's crew - make more money (and righteously defend their right to do just that) because they take bigger risks. However, it's the little guys who end up paying their tab as well. The difference is that the folks at the bottom don't have 22 lobbyists at every desk during a Treasury committee deliberation arguing against regulation, as the hedge fund industry during the 90's. Even now, the flurry of calls to regulate hedge funds has already been stamped out by those who argue that regulation is unnecessary

The line between money education and money theatre has been blurred beyond distinction, in no small part because of the talking heads on television. Ask the average person who caused the latest meltdown and they'll tell you about the crummy little mortgage cheats who got greedy, not about the hungry animal we continue to invite to dinner - the hedge funds.

I'm sure your uncle is a great guy, and it's clear that he's a smart guy. Ironic marxist references are one of my own quirks. Personally, I was glad when he no longer had to share the screen with a guy like Kudlow, someone who always struck me as a real suckup scum-bag...not to be too personal about it. ( I have some vintage Cramer moments stuck in my head - his disastrously wrong, adament predictions about the chip market a few years ago were a particularly crystalline example of his venality.) I have watched enough of your uncle's show to appreciate his real efforts to educate people about how money works on a macro level. However, I'm still waiting for the day that any one of the guys with a audience seriously begins educating the audience about the pernicious effect of vast amounts of capital flowing instantly around the globe without regulation - hedge funds. There can be no true economic stability when a small group of individuals can direct, virtually without any principle other than profit, sums of money greater than the wealth controlled by many nations.

You seem like a very sincere, loyal and very young person with a very cool job. Yes, I believe the fortunes of the rich and the poor, even the almost-rich and the nearly-poor, can coincide. However, it has always been disastrous for the lower classes to fall for the notion that what is good for the Rockefellers is good for them. Dante said something about the special place in hell reserved for good people who do nothing in the face of real evil. From my perspective, there has been no more dangerous plague on earth than the hedge fund industry. They obviate the traditional impact of risk because they are insulated from the real consequences, costs that fall on lesser beings.

While I'm mentally lounging around in the olden days of Kool-Aid references, I can't help remembering one of my favorite Tom Wolfe quotes. While interviewing Ken Kesey back in the psychedelic 60's, dressed in his signature whilte suit, Tom was obviously discomfited by the notion that some of the wild paints being cheerfully applied to an old bus might get on his suit. Kesey smiled and told Tom to let go - it was nearly impossible to be around all of that mayhem and not get some of it on you. The same is true for your uncle - being in a crowd with the Kudlows of the world means that you're going to get some of it on you, whether you like it or not. It gets are to see the line between right and wrong with all that foggy hot air blown up your skirt.

Take care

interest in ridiculous anti-competitive policies gifted by the government to the businesses its most friendly with, and also believe that these are bad policies."

So . . . there is no ethics in big business? Isn't that at the heart of all this criticism, this thirst for justice?

I, by the way, cliffmason, think you wrote a fine essay. We, as a nation, however, are so enraged at the - let's face facts here - conservative generated economic and big business policies - that have flowed from Washington ever since Bill Clinton went over to the dark side of fiscal republicanism - that people are just plain fed up with the entire lot of very rich people who have dicked with the economics of this nation to get even vastly more wealthy at the current and future expense and health of the rest of this nation.

Yeah, let's hear it for you and your uncle. More people need to stand up at the wealthier end of the spectrum and speak the honest damn truth for once but to endorse the philosophy of . . .

"It's possible to have a professional interest in ridiculous anti-competitive policies gifted by the government to the businesses its most friendly with, and also believe that these are bad policies."

. . . is equivalent to "Rape is wrong, and there can be no doubt about it, but as long as everyone else is doing it and getting away with it, well a fella'd be a damn fool not to get in on the act while the getting is good."

WHEN the wealthy start walking the walk instead of just talking the talk then perhaps people will stop calling for ALL THEIR HEADS when their slimy little 'boys will be boys' business practices and fiscal policies have once again ruined our economy.

Uh, Cliff, the thing is: it's too late to help the millions with ARM loans with a mere 50 point reduction in the prime rate. The injustice of the FED stepping in now in that way is that will only help the pernicious lenders, or worse, the investors who propped up this mortgage debt mechanism in the belief they had a get rich scheme that just couldn't fail. I repeat: even cutting a whole point off the prime will do nothing to help the people whose mortgage are about to reset get refinancings. They are facing foreclosure no matter what.