The Essential Cramer

There was plenty of other cause for outrage, too:

• Talking on Squawk
• The Etiquette of Hot IPOs
• Reg FD: When the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease
• Global Crossing Finds an Evening Gown Won't Keep You Warm

Enron actually managed to raise the bar for outrage. Big mistake, with Cramer out of the trading turret and ready to aim his Gatling gun at a scandal that epitomized all the worst excess of Wall Street and the devastating effects of that hubris on Main Street.

• Enron: The Skilling Killing
• No Excuses for This Enron Board
• What Individual Investors Should Learn From Enron
• Untying Enron's Partnerships Knot

Sept. 11 left a wounded public fearing for the stability of the nation -- including its financial markets. In the hours after evacuating his cubicle at TheStreet.com's Wall Street office, Cramer did what he could to help, trying to answer the question What's Gonna Happen? Cramer's Take, for What It's Worth. And in the rush to stand strong on the market's first trading day, investors still had to make sound trading decisions, prompting Cramer to offer Patriotic Buying: Five Rules to Follow on its eve.

The losses ran deeper than the markets: Remembering Bill Meehan and Wish You'd Known Them.

2002: WorldCom, Spitzer and Martha

Enron fallout continued to litter the Street as we struggled to understand. Cramer obliged, explaining how Making the Numbers, Ignoring the Rules worked and suggested Three Little Rules That Could Prevent Another Big Mess. When Arthur Andersen received the ultimate punishment, Cramer laid out why.

Fresh scandal sullied the Street as WorldCom went south. As the company tried to keep its chin up, Cramer hammered it with blows that hit home:

• Bailing Out Bernie Will Bury WorldCom
• Even If It's Healthy, WorldCom's No Winner
• What Will It Take to Bring WorldCom to Justice?
• Consumers of Research Deserve Disclosure Labels

Then came Spitzer. The New York Attorney General (plus grad school chum and former Cramer Berkowitz partner -- and now governor-elect of New York) became the scourge of the Street. He flushed out the Stygian stables it had become when the corrupt wanted to make a good time even better for themselves, at the expense of the public. Not that anyone was gloating as Spitzer plunged the knife in (repeatedly) and twisted it:

• The Public Needs to See Merrill Lynch's Smoking Gun Emails
• Spitzer's Cleanup Shouldn't End With Merrill Lynch (Hint: Grubman)
• The SEC's New Rules Are a Joke
• Rewriting the Book on Research Conflicts
• Business Bullies Have Lost Power Over TV Media
• Spitzer Launches a New Battle for Investors
• Navigating the Global Settlement on Research