On Friday's NBC Today, less than two hours before another poor jobs report, co-host Matt Lauer touted a bold economic prediction: "Some of the analysts I've been reading have said that no matter who is president over the next four years, the economy will add about 12 million jobs just because of the cycle it's in." CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer agreed with the rosy scenario: "...a lot of pent-up demand in autos and pent-up demand in exports. It's not such a bad moment."
Earlier in the discussion, Cramer predicted that the upcoming jobs numbers would be "a little better than expected" from the projection of 135,000 jobs created in August, with "Maybe 10,000 jobs more than that." At the top of the 9 a.m. hour, fill-in news anchor Tamron Hall delivered the much more disappointing reality: "[The unemployment rate] now stands at 8.1% for the month of August, down .2% from July, but only because more people gave up looking for work. The economy added 96,000 jobs last month."
Jim Cramer
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer invited CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer to elaborate on calling Mitt Romney a "job destroyer" as the head of Bain Capital on Sunday's Meet the Press: "You speaking as a pundit, or do you have some experience here?" Cramer declared: "He was talking about rationalizing the workforce, making it so that the companies were more efficient. Matt, these were code words back then. Code words for firing people."
On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer followed Obama campaign talking points perfectly as he decried Mitt Romney's business record at Bain Capital: "Romney's known as a job destroyer, not a creator....I think Bain sticks. I think the idea that you bring in Bain...they fire a lot of people and that's how they get prosperity for the rich." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
At the same time, Cramer dismissed a positive forward-looking Romney ad outlining specific policy proposals: "I just don't think that this will stick." He concluded the Bain attacks against Romney were "a more resonant theme" and better "than anything that Romney's come up with."
Greece is the perfect example of the eventual outcome of unchecked spending – especially as it creeps closer and closer to defaulting on its massive debts, despite multiple government bailouts in May 2011. One recent BBC News headline warned: “Greece: ‘Default within the euro is possible’.”
But, looking back, some journalists predicted the opposite: that the Greek economy would survive because of government bailouts. Huge fan of government-deficit spending, Paul Krugman, has been writing about Greece a lot, arguing that its trouble is proof that austerity doesn’t work.
Filling in for co-host Matt Lauer on Friday's NBC Today, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla seemed to suggest the media was helping the Obama administration shape public perception of the economy: "...we're in a situation where we're sort of managing expectations, especially for the White House."
Quintanilla followed that admission by asking CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer about the upcoming jobs report: "Data's been pretty good. If it's not so good today, does that mean we're suddenly once again going in the wrong direction?" Cramer replied: "I don't want to think that. I think that there are many good forces at work."
Jim Cramer, a Democrat and Wall Street insider, made a statement on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Friday morning that most definitely turned heads in the White House.
Speaking about the disappointing data released by the Conference Board, Cramer said that traders hate President Obama "like Jimmy Carter was hated" because they believe he's "destroying this country" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
During 2009 and 2010, liberal commentators and even politicians made a point of bashing conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham for allowing gold companies to advertise on their shows, arguing that conservatives and gold companies cynically colluded to deceive viewers into buying bad investments. The recent spike in gold prices seems to prove that the conservative commentators were right after all.
Gold prices topped $1,900 an ounce on August 22. The price of gold rose over 400 dollars since the beginning of this year, up from $1,421.40 per ounce since January 1st, 2011, and has rapidly risen over the past two months. The price of gold was $854.60 per ounce at the start of the Obama administration. In other words, gold prices have more than doubled since the beginning of the Obama administration.
The solution to our raging unemployment rate is so simple, I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it before. Luckily, Chris Matthews did. The government simply needs to spend more money! Because, as "everyone knows, as we studied in school," government spending creates jobs!
Matthews, just as wacky on the weekend Hardball as he is in his Mon.-Fri. version, went on a two-segment rant this morning, pleading for higher government spending on the theory that government can put people back to work across the country.
First Jim Cramer and then Bob Shrum were only too happy to agree. The supposedly capitalist Cramer went so far as to suggest that government, and not small business, is the engine that drives the economy.
Matthews closed by claiming that the private sector isn't working to create jobs, and thus government must do so, darkly warning that otherwise "you're going to have an unstable society."
View video after the jump.
Appearing on Wednesday's NBC Today, CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer blamed the debt ceiling standoff for stocks falling on Wall Street: "All people can talk about is the whole slow down that Washington triggered, the 'manufactured crisis,' as the President mentioned..." Co-host Ann Curry wondered: "To what degree did the spending cuts called for in this bill have an influence in this perception?"
Cramer argued: "We've seen a trillion dollars lost in the stock market. Much of it is associated with companies that were doing well because of government – some people call it hand outs, I would say spending – and I think that, that is a huge part of the decline." Curry touted an over-the-top prediction: "One advocacy group, the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, says the economy could lose 1.8 million jobs in the next year due to the cuts in this deal."
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry touted President Obama trying to scare the American people into supporting his debt ceiling plan: "He called for public activism, so much so that we hear that Capitol Hill web sites were crashing last night because so many people were trying to e-mail their representatives. It looks like he spooked main street...will he also spook Wall Street?"
Curry directed that question to CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer, who promptly rejected such doom and gloom: "No, not at all. Frankly, Wall Street's very calm. The markets are looking pretty good today....No one's buying the panic, no one's buying the skyrocketing interest rates economic crisis scenario."
CNBC's Jim Cramer appeared with Matt Lauer, on Tuesday's Today show to pronounce that big business is warming to President Obama as he cheered: "This is a new president. The market is up 12 percent since he changed his ways. He doesn't say he's changed his ways, but boy business sure feels he has." Cramer even went on to predict the economy would be recovered by the 2012 election as Obama was: "Making people feel more comfortable spending, he's making companies feel more comfortable spending." However, at no point did Cramer or Lauer suggest a GOP controlled House, that will be a block against business-stifling legislation like cap and trade and Obamacare, as a reason businesses may be feeling more "comfortable."
Lauer began the segment saying America initially hailed Obama's anti-business stance as he offered: "A year ago the President was bashing Wall Street, talking about the fat cats and their bonuses. And you know what? People all across this country agreed with him," but then questioned the host of Mad Money, "now we're hearing a very different tone. Is this all about the fact that jobs have not come back as quickly as people want?"
Assuming you’re a free-market oriented individual and you’re tuning into CNBC’s “Your Money, Your Vote” election coverage, this is probably not what you expected to hear.
Anchor Carl Quintanilla asked CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer about the Tea Party movement, which by many measures is what has propelled a hugged Republican wave on election night.
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