John Stewart took on Jim Kramer last night on “The Daily Show”, and evidently skewered him. While I applaud the taking down of Kramer as an “entertainer” and not a “journalist”, I think it is disingenuous for Stewart to suggest that Kramer is somehow America’s financial advisor. Stewart kept suggesting that he did not need Kramer to entertain him; that he needed Kramer to advise him. Well, then open a brokerage account with Jim Kramer.

Make no mistake; Kramer is doing what he was hired to do, and it is exactly what GE, the head of CNBC, wants him to do. Everybody in show business (like me) knows that news divisions lose tons of money while entertainment divisions make tons of money. If you were GE, what would you want Kramer to do? Now, I am not standing up for Kramer. I am castigating any and all who believed Kramer to be a Wall Street guru. I have been screaming for years that without government licensing, nobody has a right to recommend anything to anybody in the financial world. That is why I have never engaged in specific advice to my general television and radio audience (I reserve that privilege for my clients with whom I have a deep and abiding relationship…and hold each of their very individual hopes and dreams dear to my heart.

If a viewer or listener ask me whether or not you should buy IBM, I will not answer the question and never, ever have. I will engage the caller or viewer in any number of scenarios involving how you evaluate value in a stock or a sector but I don’t participate in buy, sell or hold.

Why?

Because I am a registered representative of the New York Stock Exchange, and I am beholding to rule 405 which states that I must “know my customer.” How can I know you if the extent of our relationship is 10 seconds on the phone? Kramer is under no such scrutiny, and that has been, is and will continue to be the problem with Mr. Mad Money and the like.

What is called for is a continued focus on the proper and fully contextualized role of the media in finance. I have been telling all of you and anybody who would listen that “nobody knows nothing” as it pertains to the short run on Wall Street. That is a timeless truth - that will once again bare itself out when this market cycle swings upward and those who stayed in (or got in) are rewarded. I continue to be optimistic that eventually that will sink in.

In the meantime, if you want financial truth through the airwaves, there are places to get it including my own show. All you need to do is ask the personality that you are talking to whether or not they are subject to SEC regulations regarding the dispensing of individual financial advice. If they are, they can educate you but they cannot advise you on specific products.

My guess is that most of you will continue to sacrifice the prudent route for what you perceive to be the more lucrative one involving the least mount of actual work. To all of you I say caveat emptor.

For those of you who are catching on to the fact that wealth accumulation is not about timing, but has everything to do with finding good soil, planting a seed and doing the work it takes to allow that seed to grow into something bigger than you expected…hope springs eternal.

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