TheStreet.com TV Recap: A Lack of Antitrust

The economy is still waffling and to some degree decelerating, despite a perception to the contrary, Jim Cramer said on The Street.com TV's Wall Street Confidential video Webcast Friday.

Workers in the housing cycle are starting to get laid off, following the hit the sector took last summer, Cramer told Aaron Task, the host of Wall Street Confidential. And the auto numbers are so bad, with Ford (F Quote - Cramer on F - Stock Picks) and General Motors (GM Quote - Cramer on GM - Stock Picks) each employing 50,000 workers too many, Cramer added.

When people see a number -- the retail sales number, for example -- they believe the economy is better than expected, Cramer said. But then they see Ingersoll-Rand (IR Quote - Cramer on IR - Stock Picks), Caterpillar (CAT Quote - Cramer on CAT - Stock Picks) and Black & Decker (BDK Quote - Cramer on BDK - Stock Picks) and realize "the strength of the economy is vastly overstated."

Even though Lennar (LEN Quote - Cramer on LEN - Stock Picks) is up, if market-players read the company's statement, they'll understand there is not one region it is not pulling back from, he said. The camp that said the Fed was about to tighten has been discredited and should own up to it, Cramer said.

However, when Task said the notion that the Fed is going to ease in the spring is controversial because of current inflation pressures and rising commodity prices, Cramer said he is a big believer in the inventory cycle.

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