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Cramer Saves The Economy

In his own charming way, of course.

 

Transcript courtesy CNBC:

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After today's unbelieveable beat down, punching 486 points off the Dow, we need a plan to fix this economy, even as all we have done so far is give up a couple of day's gains that we'd racked up, not to mention the end of yesterday's move that was in part caused by the vastly mistaken view that McCain would pull a rabbit out of a hat.  As I said in my game plan on Friday, the next 1000 points are out of our hands.  We need huge rate cuts from Europe and Asia tonight, ahead of the no doubt awful unemployment report Friday.  I also indicated on last night's show that the time to start selling is at hand, although the decline today didn't give you much chance to take action.

Never fear though. My email inbox indicates overwhelmingly that you all want a plan to fix the economy and, bizarrely, you trust an often wrong, never in doubt television commentator*--thanks to my friend Donny Deutsch for that line because I'm on his show tonight--to deliver it.  So without further ado here’s what Barack Obama needs to do in his first hundred days as President if he wants to revive this economy and make sure we don’t have so many of these miserable days where the Dow drops 486 points.

Day one, I say this in all serious, Obama must hire me as his SEC Chairman, Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary, three in one—like the oil.  Here’s my job application: I promise I will work harder than anyone else because I have problems sleeping—I wake up at 4AM every morning at the latest—and most importantly I have an intense inferiority complex, and I at last want to live up to my father’s expectations.  That and I know exactly what we need to do, much better than the current crowd of jokers who are partially responsible for the mess we’re in.

On his second day in office, Obama has to fix the auto industry.  Again, I got this.  We have to bailout GM and Chrysler, not to mention Ford, with the same template we used for the AIG bailout.  First, we do a government backed merger of GM and Cerberus’ Chrysler—something that should be easy to do pass through congress as John Snow, Cerberus’s front man and former Bush Treasury secretary, as well as Bob Nardelli, the CEO of Chrysler, have tremendous leverage in Washingon—why I couldn’t tell you, it’s harder to find two more incompetent figures, but we keep giving them a free pass.

The way to do the deal is for the government to take a huge stake in GM’s common stock, as well as buying billions in GM preferred stock, which would preserve all of GM’s bonds, and allow GM to raise capital for the deal, because the government’s backing will turn all of GM’s bonds into high-grade paper.  This way the company can use the Federal intervention to raise all the money it wants by selling commercial paper to fund all day to day operations.  This has the added advantage of letting the workers keep their jobs and allowing the unions to fight the good fight, so it should be an easy sell for an Obama administration, which may actually care about the little guy.  Be careful, this could be a potential government of, by and for the workers, a half Lincoln half Trotsky edict, but better than just stuffing billions into bankers' pockets which is the current Republican plan.

Do the same thing with Ford, take a big equity stake and buy up all the preferreds.  In the end, we may use the same model the Europeans have with Airbus for these companies, turning them into permanent state sponsored enterprises, sort of like Fannie and Freddie before they were dismantled.  Bush was willing to bail out Wall Street, Obama got elected because he’ll bail out main street, and to do that he has to save the autos.  I guess what’s good for GM is still good for America, not to mention Chrysler and Ford.

On day three, I think Obama has to solve energy independence, oh and jobs too.  Shouldn’t be too tough once you realize that we have enough natural gas to supply all of our energy needs until the end of days, and he can make a backroom deal with the autos for a plan to use compressed natural gas to fuel their new cars when they accept the bailout money.  All Federal vehicles must run on natural gas by 2012, something like that.  And say to the integrated oils that if they don’t open natural gas fueling stations they won’t be eligible for tax credits.  That’s all we need to achieve energy independence and it will create millions of drilling jobs.  Pretty good for his first three days in office.

Day four, Obama must let it be known that there will be no more immigrant deportations, so that immigrants, legal and illegal, will stop being afraid to buy homes.  Their default rate is almost nil, these are the people the banks want to lend to as they will take on fourth and fifth jobs to keep their mortgages current.  Then to solve the housing crisis, Obama should take the remaining $400 billion in the TARP and buy 1.3 million homes outright, which is what $400 billion would get you using the average home price in California, the worst market.  He should either give these homes to people in return for 5% loans and minimum down payments, or pull an FDR and burn them to get rid of the oversupply.  An agricultural adjustment act for housing.  It will end the foreclosure crisis just in time for my schedule.  This is a much better plan than whatever Nancy Pelosi promised today, which really helped kill the market.

Day five: Obama should scout whoever the Redskins may be playing and, like Cramer fave President Nixon, call in a play to Jim Zorn for the big game.  This time it will make the difference!

Bottom line: all Obama needs to do to save the country is give me three of the highest offices in the land, save the autos, achieve energy independence using natural gas, and end the oversupply of housing.  Sounds easy when you say it like that.  I think he can do it in four days, let’s give him a hundred.

Economy
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