Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: May 13

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"The warning bells are ringing," Jim Cramer told the viewers of his "Mad Money" TV show on Wednesday. But he said they're not ringing from Wall Street but from Washington.

Cramer said the markets were telling us something today. On the surface it might have appeared that this was a horrible day, with everything headed lower, but in reality, the food and drug stocks had remarkable momentum.

Case in point, General Mills (GIS Quote), a stock which Cramer owns for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS. The company was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal as its flagship cereal, Cheerios, came under fire from the Food and Drug Administration over health claims.

On any other day, said Cramer, news like this would've killed the stock of General Mills. But today, the stock opened unchanged, and rallied for most of the day before closing down just 19 cents.

Cramer said action like this is worrisome. It means people are pulling money out of the leaders, like oil, tech, and the banks, and are moving into defensive names. What changed? Cramer said the weaker-than-expected retail sales numbers, along with Obama's call for tax hikes and bank executive pay cuts have the markets worried.

"The market's too fragile for tax hikes," he said. Hikes create anxiety, and that has the bells in Cramer's head starting to ring. "We need to be careful," he said.