Bailout Watch 151: Mad Money's Jim Cramer is a Man With a Plan

The recently re-educated former uber-capitalist Jim Cramer was his usual shy self yesterday whilst laying out his plan for the first 100 days of an Obama administration to CNBC. Jim the Shouter says he’s just responding to a deluge of viewer emails demanding his plan to fix the economy. As a self-described “often wrong, never in doubt talk show commentator”, Cramer’s plan goes something like this… Day 1: Appoint him, Jim Cramer, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Chairman of the SEC and Treasury Secretary all at once. Main qualification: Will worker harder than anyone and knows exactly what to do. Day 2: “But in all seriousness,” fix the auto industry: Start by using government backing to do the Cerberus-Chrysler/GM merger deal. This should be “easy to do” because John Snow (Cerberus head and former Bush Treasury Secretary) and Bob Nardelli “have tremendous leverage in Washington.” Never mind that “it’s harder to find two more incompetent figures…” the boys have juice. Besides, the two are “fabulous TV guests, so let’s keep giving them a free pass.” That done, the government should “take a huge position in GM common stock” and buy “billions in newly issued GM preferred stock, which would protect GM’s bonds and convert GM debt back into high grade commercial paper.”With the magic restoration of GM’s credit rating, jobs would be protected and the worker’s unions would be “able to continue to fight the good fight.” Since “Obama seems to actually care about the little guy this could become a government of, by and for the workers.” Despite the slightly Trotskyism implications, this plan would still be better “than just stuffing billions into the bankers pockets, which is really the Republican’s plan.” After handling GM in the morning of Day 2, do the same for Ford in the afternoon. Cramer views this as turning the US automotive industry into something akin to Europe’s state-sponsored Airbus, or the pre-bailout Fannie and Freddie. He fails to mention the U.S. Postal Service, another government sponsored but quasi-independent service industry behemoth.Day 3: Solve energy independence by switching over in a massive way to natural gas, which the U.S. has in sufficient supply to “last until the end of days.” Use the government’s new-found domination of the auto industry and ability to influence the oil industry and buying power (require all federal vehicles to be CNG powered by 2012) to make it so. Without using the name, Cramer pretty much reiterated the entire “ Pickens’ Plan.”Day 4: Stop all deportations of immigrants in order to support the housing market by giving immigrants the confidence to start buying homes again. This group “doesn’t default” because the will “take three or four jobs, do whatever it takes” to keep paying their debts. That done, use the remaining $400b in the TARP, which is “probably currently earmarked to make sure bonuses at Merrill Lynch are paid,” to buy up 1.3m homes and either resell them with advantageous mortgages; or simply burn them down to remove supply from the market.Day 5: Rest up, the work is done.And all of this from a guy who wanted John McCain to be the next President. No wonder they call his show “Mad Money.”