Jim Cramer Reflects on His 2007 'They Know Nothing' Fed Call

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- TheStreet's Jim Cramer slammed Federal Reserve members in August 2007, when he said they didn't understand the magnitude of the crisis that had begun to grip major financial institutions in the U.S.

More than five years later, the Fed Friday released its official transcripts of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings, which reveal policymakers' thinking at the time.

Though the 2007 FOMC transcripts revealed the early cracks of the impending financial crisis that would grip the U.S., its markets and the rest of the globe, they showed that the Fed still was uncertain as to how massive the problem would become. Thus, they support Cramer's assertions at the time.

Just before the FOMC held its first emergency meeting of the financial crisis in 2007, Cramer unloaded on Fed officials with then-CNBC host Erin Burnett:

"I have talked to the heads of almost every single one of these firms in the last 72 hours, and [Ben Bernanke] has no idea what it's like out there. None. And [Former St. Louis Fed. President] Bill Poole has no idea what it's like out there. My people have been in this game for 25 years and they're losing their jobs, and these firms are going to go out of business, and he's nuts! They're nuts! They know nothing! ... This is a different kind of market, and the Fed is asleep."

Not long after Cramer's self-described rant, the FOMC members mentioned TheStreet's co-founder in an official meeting.

"I believe that the correct policy posture is to let the markets work through the changes in risk appetite and pricing that are under way, but the market observations of one of my more strident conversational counterparts -- and that is not Jim Cramer [laughter] -- are worth sharing," said Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, according to the transcripts.

Cramer emerged Saturday morning with his response to finding out that he had been mentioned in the early discussions of the crisis.

I find it incredible that the people in the fed meeting took the time out to actually laugh at me back in 2007. Laugh....— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) January 19, 2013

Cramer mentioned in a Jan. 19 tweet that he remembered "fearing i would be fired for speaking my mind about the Fed being so wrong, but i work for a fabulous network that backed me."

Cramer continued by tweeting that he still finds it amazing that mortgage fraud perpetrators and Fed officials never "paid a price for their sins."

But he also specifically praised Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and noted that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- then the vice chairman of the FOMC and New York Fed president -- later apologized to Cramer.

But i am thankful that Ben Bernanke changed courses and Tim Geithner apologized to me years later personally and publicly. Good men all— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) January 19, 2013

The Fed is expected to release the 2008 transcripts sometime in early 2014.

-- Written by Joe Deaux in New York.

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