Cramer And Kudlow Are Forgiven

Because the CNBC hosts are stable and thoughtful compared to the network's resident Village Idiot, Jerry Bowyer. Here's a guy who believes the causes of the financial meltdown are the minimum wage hike, Eliot Spitzer, Chuck Schumer, any and all market regulation in the last 80 years, Chris Cox, the media coverage of Sarah Palin, and my personal favorite, "affirmative action mortgages."

If you think any of these caused the financial crisis, please feel free to drink the NY Times Kool-Aid (ladies and gentlemen, your liberal, socialist media) and invest heavily on Monday: after all we haven't had a depression in decades!

Now investors have again convinced themselves that this time is different, that the credit crisis will push economies worldwide into the deepest recession since the Depression. Fear runs even deeper today than greed did a decade ago.

But in their panic, investors are ignoring 60 years of history. Since the Depression, governments have become far more aggressive about intervening when credit markets seize up or economies struggle. And those interventions have generally succeeded. The recessions since World War II, while hardly easy, have been far less painful than the Depression.

Now some veteran investors, including G. Kenneth Heebner, a mutual fund manager who has one of the best long-term track records on Wall Street, say that the sell-off has gone much too far and stocks are poised to rally powerfully if the downturn is less severe than investors fear.

Sure. It won't be so bad! It's not even going to be a mild recession, I mean 6.1% unemployment? Hey, stocks are undervalued! When this pesky credit crisis vanishes, we'll come roaring back to Dow 14,000 and you're going to miss out! BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!

What have you got to lose? Stock prices and home values always go up!