Rate Cut Mea Culpa and Hats Off to Cramer

The other day Jim Cramer and I were standing outdoors in Manhattan's Financial District to record some videos for TheStreet.com TV. I was throwing out some ideas, but my very first one was rejected. I wanted to argue with Jim about the need for a rate cut. He made a face that seemed to say, "Oh, please. Not another rate cut story."

Cramer had been everywhere pounding for an emergency rate cut. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it again. The reality is, it's a boring topic. People want to hear about stocks, not about the arcane federal machinery that starts to move when the Federal Reserve injects more liquidity into the system.

And thank God that Jim didn't want to do yet another video on the rate cut. Because I'd be sitting here now with egg all over my face, hoping people would forget about that moment when I would've been pounding the table, screaming at the top of my lungs at Jim, "The economy is fine! We don't need a rate cut," and now here we are -- just two days later -- with a 50 basis-point rate cut from the Fed. If that had happened, I would certainly be embarrassed now. But Cramer was calling it, so let's see what it means.

First off, you must own the financial stocks that two of the greatest investors -- Warren Buffett and Eddie Lampert -- have been buying.

• Bank of America(BAC Quote) -- a 5.4% dividend; $1.5 trillion in assets and growing. The stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 9; and Buffett just bought 9 million shares.
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