Cramer Stays Calm. A Kennedy Goes Cuckoo. Covid Rants Go Viral. An Epic Weekend of Football. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room
THE DAILY NEWSLETTER – MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2022
MEDIA WINNER: Jim Cramer
On Monday’s episode of Squawk on the Street, CNBC’s Jim Cramer cited bad earnings, fears of tightening by the Fed, and the Russian threat to Ukraine as factors in stocks plummeting and some alarm across the board about the market.
He then told his audience that it might feel good to sell, but don’t do so in a panic because you might not be able to get back in.
“Look I’m not negative,” said Cramer. “I’m trying to give you a positive scenario here. I’m saying when stocks are down this much…that you shouldn’t just say, ‘Holy cow, I’m getting killed,’ because you should realize you’ve been getting killed.”
“So now you have to decide what stocks are down a certain percentage from their high, that still could be worth a great deal,” he said. “And those are ones that you have to do some buying.”
Cramer’s colleague David Faber brought up reports of companies with “names that you know very well” whose stock prices were “down dramatically off their highs after a very strong year last year.”
“But should we just decide that it’s over? And let’s look at selling here, and then betting we can get back in?” Cramer replied. “Are you that good? I mean, is this something that you can do easily?”
“If it bleeds, it leads” is a long-running cliche about our 24-7 news cycle, and there’s a similar temptation for the financial media to issue doom-and-gloom predictions. Cramer is “arguably the most recognizable financial journalist working in the media,” as we described him in our ranking of the Mediaite Most Influential in News Media 2021 list. He’s earned the long-term goodwill of his audience by not preaching panic, even though it might create short-term ratings.
MEDIA LOSER: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, spewing an incredible array of conspiracy theories, including comparing those who defy vaccine mandates to Jews hiding from Nazi genocide during the Holocaust.
Yes, really.
Kennedy told the rally audience that “technological mechanisms” were being used “to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent,” in ways that past “totalitarian states” had been unable to accomplish.
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy continued. “I visited in 1962 East Germany with my father, and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible — many died doing it, but it was possible.”
Anne Frank, her mother Edith, father Otto, and older sister Margot lived with four other Jews to hide from the Nazis in a cramped attic annex above the Amsterdam factory where her father had worked, until they were discovered and sent to concentration camps. Only Otto Frank survived.
That is what Kennedy thought was a valid situation to compare to people refusing to take a safe and effective vaccine. He then coughed up an absolutely bonkers sample platter of conspiracy theories, hitting Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 5G cell phone technology, and satellites.
If Kennedy could have just added a mention of chemtrails in that wacky little rant, he would’ve gotten Tinfoil Hat Bingo.
Divisive. Daft. Disappointing. Dangerous. And those are just some of the D adjectives to describe RFK Jr.’s demented display at the anti-vaxx rally. “Simply deranged” was how CNN’s John Berman described the speech.
Links We Like:
This Isn’t Jim Crow 2.0
– Larry Hogan, The Atlantic
Biden’s Boring First Year
– Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason
A Troll’s Progress: How one of the right’s most vicious bigots touched all the bases
– Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark
Peloton’s big whoops
– Emily Stewart, Vox
Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including some Covid rants that went viral and a truly epic weekend of football. Sign up for your free subscription here.
