John Oliver, host of HBO's (WBD) late-night talk and news satire show "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver," chose a specific focal point for some mockery on his show April 23.
The target was stock expert Jim Cramer of Comcast's (CMCSA) CNBC.
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It's the exact sort of parody and criticism that is common in pop culture and doesn't seem to bother Cramer in the slightest.
For example, the Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF SJIM is a fund that gained much attention promising to invest in precisely the opposite ways Cramer recommends when it launched March 2.
Cramer welcomed the idea with open arms.
"As always, I welcome people betting against me," he tweeted on Oct. 7. "I have done this for 42 years. Those who know me know that you would have been betting against Apple (AAPL) at $5, Google (GOOGL) since inception, Meta (META) at $18, Amazon (AMZN) at $10, Nvidia (NVDA) at $25 and AMD (AMD) at $5. I welcome all comers."
In a segment on his show, Oliver put together some video of Cramer talking about Sam Bankman-Fried (commonly known as SBF) after his cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in fall 2022.
"That guy is a clueless idiot," Cramer is heard saying in one clip.
"He's a pathological liar," Cramer says in another. "He's a con man."
"We're talking about nearly four years of getting away with financial murder just because they could," he adds.
The camera moves to Oliver at his desk.
"Wow, those are some harsh words there from the squawking parrot on every pirate's shoulder," he said. "Especially as just a year earlier Cramer was saying this."
The video moves to Cramer again, this time with SBF appearing on his CNBC show.
"Tonight we're going to educate ourselves with Sam Bankman-Fried," Cramer says. "Well, Sam, I gotta tell you, it's an honor to have you because I think you're pretty much a visionary."
Oliver offers his satirical take on the contradiction in the clips.
"Not great, but also not surprising," he says. "After all, this is the same guy that proclaimed that Bear Stearns is fine literally days before it folded, told his viewers to buy Netflix (NFLX) right before it lost almost 70% in five months."
"And once, and this is true, said that Google, Facebook and Twitter should hire Kevin Spacey as a spokesperson," he adds. "Jim Cramer is the only person who could look you in the eye, say you are going to die tomorrow, and give you an immediate sense of calm knowing that you're going to live for another 50 years."
Here's the clip, posted to twitter by Wall Street Memes (@wallstmemes).
Oliver also had this to say about cryptocurrency in another clip from the same show, this one posted to YouTube.
I'm absolutely not saying that we should get rid of crypto entirely. It could eventually be useful.
Maybe the third time that we talk about it, we'll all be using a digital coin to buy everything. I doubt it, but I can't predict the future. After all, I'm no Jim Cramer.
But we should recognize that right now the main thing you can really do with crypto is gamble with more crypto. This is all still a casino. So if you do want to invest, do your own due diligence. Never put in more than you can afford to lose.
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