Philosophical Ramblings: Cramer and the effect of predictions on the populace

Jim Cramer got in some hot water the other day for the following comments:

In what Curry called a “dramatic statement,” Cramer emphatically urged any investor who has money they may need in the next five years tied to stocks to pull their dough out.

“I thought about this all weekend,” Cramer told Curry. “I do not want to say these things on TV. Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”

While the animated Cramer is known for telling investors the best prospects for earning money on the stock market, he’s now saying retreat is the best position in the face of some of the worst financial news in decades. The bank lending default crisis that put financial firms around the country on the brink of collapse could bring “as much as a 20 percent decrease in the stock market,” Cramer predicted.

That day, the stock market dropped, and MEDIA started blaming the "Cramer Effect" for making matters worse.

This got me thinking about what effect predictions really have if they're listened to by the public. Do they amplify what is to come? Prevent it? Does the prediction become a self-fulfilling prophecy when millions of people hear and act on the information?

I also started thinking that if Cramer can be blamed for a stock market drop, what else can we blame on television? Can crime be blamed on news reports depicting crime? Can Bush and Paulson be blamed for inducing a panic on Wall Street (Yes)? Can Jose Canseco be blamed for kids shooting up steroids in Texas? Can Shot of Love be blamed for underage drinking and promiscuity?

If that's true, what's the response? Is this the true price of freedom?

For some reason, if you will allow a brief detour, this whole thought process reminded me of a comic book mini-series called Unstable Molecules. It's about the Fantastic Four before they became heroes. At one point, we see Reed Richards studying molecules under a microscope, and he realizes that the observer has an effect on the observed.

WE, as observers of MEDIA content on radio, television, print, internet, verbal ... WE have a collective effect on all this. Investors, for example, watch Cramer, and react to what he says. Enough sycophants pay attention to Jose Canseco that he makes a living selling books.

Now, in Cramer's case, he was observing the behavior of all the investors as a group, and he gave advice based on this. Prior to his advice, the market was already struggling. He MAY have amplified it ... he may not. Either way, he was reacting to investors ... observing them ... and possibly influencing them with his words.

And he was INFLUENCED by investors, which led to his decision to speak up!

It's a circular argument.

It remind me of Ouroboros. Here's a portion of the Wiki entry about this mythological creature:

The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles....

I believe ... that the Realtor (who, in the real world, is represented by the ever-changing person or persons that market realities to our country) has sold the country YET ANOTHER bill of goods, covering up one lie (Financial CRISIS) with another.

That's where the circle starts.