COMMENTS:
Busted: CNBC Sleaze Jim Cramer Blabs on How He Shorted Stocks and Manipulated Markets
In it, the host of Mad Money says he regularly manipulated the market when he ran his hedge fund. He calls it "a fun game, and it's a lucrative game." He suggests all hedge fund managers do the same. "No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I could care. I am not going to say it on TV," he quips in the video.
He also calls Wall Street Journal reporters "bozos" and says behaving illegally is okay because the SEC doesn't understand it anyway.
Here are some gems:
-On manipulating the market: "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures,"
-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls "fomenting"): "You can't foment. That's a violation... But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it." He adds, "When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment."
-On the truth: "What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction," Cramer advises. "You can't take any chances."
Watch it:
Editor's Update: Former Virginia Representative Tom Davis apparently wants Cramer "looked at" for market manipulation:
"I think he's become a poster child for why hedge funds need more regulation and transparency," former Virginia Representative Tom Davis told CNN on Thursday.
Davis's remarks were sparked by a video from 2006, which has now gone viral, in which Mad Money host Cramer explained on his own website how he could influence stock prices as a hedge fund manager.
"You take a bunch of stocks and make sure that they're higher," Cramer suggests in the video. "Maybe commit five billion in capital to it. ... No one else in the world would ever admit that, but I don't care."
When asked, "Is any of this illegal?" Davis replied, "It wasn't, but it should be."
"He may well have crossed the line," Davis continued. "I think that's something somebody ought to be looking at. I think the tragedy is, over the last few years, nobody's been looking at this at all"
Davis, a moderate Republican, served as chairman of the House Government Reform Committee from 2003 to 2007, when it was known for exercising almost no oversight of the Bush administration.
CNBC declined to comment on Davis's remarks, but CNN obtained a statement from Cramer saying, "No one knows and respects the securities laws more than I do. ... When I was a hedge fund trader in the 1990's, I played fair and I did nothing that violated those laws."
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