Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: In Praise of CEOs (Final)

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- "How the markets can rise above the doom and gloom and give us great days like today," Jim Cramer asked the viewers of his "Mad Money" TV show Thursday.

The answer: leadership. Cramer said he's celebrating CEOs, the men and women who run great multi-national companies that continue to reinvent themselves and generate profits for their shareholders.

Cramer said there's a long list of great companies that are profiting from constant innovation, companies like 3M (MMM), which has long left its "Minnesota Mining" roots and now derives a full one-third of its profits from products that didn't exist three years ago.

Then there are companies like Caterpillar (CAT), said Cramer. Caterpillar transformed itself from a domestic tractor maker to the international leader in construction machinery.

And the list continues, said Cramer, from companies like UPS (UPS), a stock which he owns for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS, which grew from packages into logistics, VF Corp (VFC), which evolved from jeans to sportswear, and yes, of course there's Apple (AAPL), another Action Alerts Plus name.

Cramer said Apple, under Steve Jobs, transformed itself from a personal computer maker into the greatest, and most profitable, cell phone company in the world. The company's iPod continues to evolve, and new products, like the iPad, are just the latest signs of constant innovation.

Leadership makes the difference, said Cramer, and that's why he wants to celebrate the great CEOs of the world.