Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:

• the perils of relying on the government,
• China's overwhelming importance, and
• the unfounded hatred for Sears.

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Don't Put All Your Eggs in Washington's Basket
Posted at 10:40 a.m., Jan. 5, 2009

It's hard to be as negative as we would probably like to be about 2009. We are all over the "so goes" stuff, as in "As goes the first day, so goes the year." How much I would like to believe that.

I do buy the parallel that it can't be as bad as last year. I also believe it can't be as good as the old days.

This year is the footrace: Can we stop unemployment at 9% vs. how quickly the stimulus gets passed. Literally, it matters when the bill gets passed. An Illinois Senate setback. A Richardson stumble. These matter. You cannot sustain the rally in stocks like Caterpillar (CAT Quote) and Nucor (NUE Quote) without fast action, and that's been propelling us.

Do we like the market without quick stimulus? Do we like the market with the banks still worried about collateral dropping the moment they lend against it? Do we like the market, knowing that the banks still do not have the funding -- I know, outrageous but true -- to make big bets? Do we like the market without M&A and IPOs?

I don't.

It's all on Obama, which worries me -- I don't like the idea that Wall Street needs Washington to make things go. Does anyone really think that the Republicans want to back the Democrats to make the economy better?

Not me.

I say, temper the enthusiasm about Washington and then draw conclusions. If there is a delay in stimulus, which there could be after the TARP blank-check fiasco, then we are "stuck" with the fundamentals.

Which means it's better to be a in a drug company that merges with Pfizer (PFE Quote) -- today's rumor courtesy of the Financial Times -- than to be in a roaring infrastructure stock that doesn't get to make its earnings for a year because of a jam-up in Washington.

Random musings: More surprises from Doug Kass. Remember, these were almost all home run calls last year. I like Business Week, but its predictions were way too tame this year, and I love Byron Wien, but his predictions aren't bankable like Doug's, because Doug offers what I call the "variant to the variant!"

At the time of publication, Cramer had no positions in the stocks mentioned.