Bob Veres - who is a titan in the financial planning world - was recently interviewed on MorningstarAdvisor.com (subscription required).  Much to my surprise, he was asked about the recent exchange between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer.  It surprised me to see pop culture enter this realm, but that particular episode of The Daily Show has obviously transcended the mainstream.

First let me say that I respect the fact that Jim Cramer showed up for the show.  He didn’t have to, and the original shot that Stewart took was not even aimed at Cramer.  Furthermore, as Stewart freely admitted, his show takes its shots and makes light of things in a way that may or may not be accurate or truthful.  The point is to be funny, not to deliver news in any kind of balanced manner.  All of that aside, it was clear in the unedited version of this that Cramer bowed to Stewart on just about every point.  Why?  I don’t know, but I do think that the main thrust of Jon Stewart’s “attack” was right on the money:  this is not a game for most Americans.  As Bob Veres replied in the Morningstar Advisor interview, “Stewart is speaking the language of the fiduciary financial planner. He is pointing out to the media that this is not entertainment, its people’s lives. What Jon Stewart is getting at, and what planners get at instinctively is that money runs much deeper than the numbers, the entertainment value and the news. It is tied up with our psychology, ambitions, and goals–everything that we are as people. Treating it as anything less is trivializing it in a very dangerous way. The market does what it does and the financial media has just become an echo chamber.”

Well said.