Cramer: The Past Is a Game Plan for the Present

We want to try to figure out what can happen. We want to try to figure out how to protect ourselves and profit from it.

Why is that important? I want to go back to 1987, 1990 and to 2000. Those were three fulcrum years where, if you had a game plan, you could think more clearly than if you were winging it -- which, by the way, is what the Fed is doing.

Here's my takeaway from those three crashes. First, away from the Nasdaq's stunning decline in 2000 - a fall from 5000 to 2000 -- you could have made a lot of hay with traditional S&P 500 names with solid balance sheets that were insensitive to the recession. You had great success with Procter (PG Quote) and Coke (KO Quote). You made money. ...