Jim Cramer Takes Another Scalp

I regret to inform you that Jim Cramer has claimed another scalp. The notorious “expert” who has produced some of the worst financial takes in history saw another one of his anti-predictions come to fruition on Tuesday after it was reported that First Republic Bank will be seized by the federal government.

To set the stage, a month before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed earlier in the year, Cramer famously recommended its stock as a “buy” at $320 a share. In 2022, he recommended people buy into Signature Bank. By 2023, Signature Bank had shut down.

Following the collapse of those banks, Cramer then moved on to First Republic Bank, telling his followers that it was the “new focus” and “very good.” That means that in the span of a single year, Cramer recommended three banks to invest in. All of them are now defunct or in the process of becoming defunct.

This is just getting out of hand… we need to stop this man pic.twitter.com/UkYYSm3ahQ

— Ahmed Al Assliken 🍑👅 (@assliken) April 25, 2023

It’s actually impressive how consistently wrong Cramer has managed to be. You’d think he’d hit a few out of the park just by sheer chance, but somehow he manages to be worse at predictions than a guy who makes NFL picks by throwing darts at a wall. Truly, it’s incredible to witness. It’s like being in the presence of greatness, except the greatness in this case is an uncanny ability to fail. You can set your clock by it.

So what’s the broader critique here? I mean, yeah, I just like to dunk on Cramer because it’s hilarious, and I think that’s why you clicked on this story. There’s certainly no shame in that. Yet, I think Cramer’s fame coupled with his continual floundering is instructive about something. Namely, just how useless much of the “expert” class is.

Forget Cramer for a minute. For decades, we’ve been bombarded with the supposed wonders of expertise, ranging from the topic of foreign policy to the economy. How’d those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan go? Is Libya now a democratic paradise, and I just missed it? And clearly, helping to propagate a civil war in Syria, leading to the deaths of nearly a million people, worked out fabulously, right? By the way, remember when the war in Ukraine would end before the year was up?

Economically, things haven’t gone much better. Remember when the experts told us that inflation was going to be transitory? Your bank account surely remembers since it has been slowly drained over the course of the Biden presidency. Who’s keeping score, though? Just listen to the “experts,” they said. They know more than you!

Yeah, Cramer’s lack of performance while spouting advice on his CNBC show is parodic, but he’s just a synonym for a much bigger illness. To put it simply, the country is being run by really, really stupid people. It pays more to be wrong than right in our society. Until that changes, the pain will continue.

With that said, I’ve got a plan to turn this all for good.