JIM CRAMER AND MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD BOTH AGREE: WORLD NEEDS TO SWITCH TO NATURAL GAS

Loud-mouthed Jim Cramer of CNBC often has moments of intelligent lucidity, such as his promotion of the virtues of natural gas: cheap, plentiful and clean-burning. So when Exxon recently made an offer to take over XTO, a natural gas driller, Cramer thought it was a smart move.

I bet Cramer would be surprised to find that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agrees with him on the desirability of natural gas as one step in curbing man-made green houses gasses and global warming.

Juan Cole in his Informed Comment quotes Ahmadinejad's speech to the U.N. assembly in Copenhagen in a translation by the USG Open Source Center.

Ahmadinejad says:

"Every year millions of people lose their lives as a result of pollution, and skin and respiratory illnesses are on the increase. If greenhouse-gases continue to increase at the present speed, they will reach twice the level of gases before industrialization. In other words, instead of a reduction of 50 per cent, they will increase by 50 per cent and will pose a real challenge to the natural environment."

Ahmadinejad offers several concrete solutions, including ending the purposeless war in Afghanistan and spending the billions of dollars on Afghanistan's infrastructure and economic development:

"The so-called industrialized countries should fulfill their international commitments. At the same time, clear and feasible mechanisms should be drawn up which bring the disobedient governments and economic sectors under control and obligates them to pay fines to the countries which have experienced a loss. It has been said that more than 250 billion dollars has been spent on the expedition to Afghanistan and around 1,000 billion dollars has been the cost of the war in Iraq. Wouldn't 50 billion dollars spent on Afghanistan's infrastructure and economic development have turned this country into a developed country? And wouldn't 200 billion dollars on developing new technology and suitable use of fossil fuel have returned the pollution level to the period before industrialization?"

Ahmadinejad says that Iran is pursuing reduction of green-house gasses and global warming on different levels:

"And to this end the government has focused on the following plans:

- Reduction in energy consumption through improving standards in industries and productions,

- The management of consumption and elimination of energy subsidies in a planned and scheduled program,

- Extensive conversion of vehicles, industries and power plant to run on gas,

- Provision of access to natural gas for more than 90 per cent of cities and many villages,

- Extensive research on the use of clean energy including wind, solar, as well as plans for the production of nuclear fuel and 20,000 mw nuclear electricity."

Note Ahmadinejad's tress on natural gas. As I said above, Jim Cramer would love these proposals. And rightly so.

FRANK RICH IN TODAY'S NYT ON CNBC'S ANIMUS FOR OBAMA

I have posted here about the evident bias of many CNBC hosts and reporters against Obama and his plans for the economy, taxes and health care. Here is a link to my post several days ago.

On the same topic, here is Frank Rich writing in today's The New York Times about the meanies on CNBC railing against Obama's plans for health care reform, banking regulation and cutting tax deductions for the wealthy:

"Last week Jon Stewart whipped up a well-earned frenzy with an eight-minute “Daily Show” takedown of the stars of CNBC, the business network that venerated our financial gods, plugged their stocks and hyped the bubble’s reckless delusions. (Just as it had in the dot-com bubble.) Stewart’s horrifying clip reel featured Jim Cramer reassuring viewers that Bear Stearns was “not in trouble” just six days before its March 2008 collapse; Charlie Gasparino lip-syncing A.I.G.’s claim that its subprime losses were “very manageable” in December 2007; and Larry Kudlow declaring last April that “the worst of this subprime business is over.” The coup de grâce was a CNBC interviewer fawning over the lordly Robert Allen Stanford. Stewart spoke for many when he concluded, “Between the two of them I can’t decide which one of those guys I’d rather see in jail.”

"Led by Cramer and Kudlow, the CNBC carnival barkers are now, without any irony whatsoever, assailing the president as a radical saboteur of capitalism. It’s particularly rich to hear Cramer tar Obama (or anyone else) for “wealth destruction” when he followed up his bum steer to viewers on Bear Stearns with oleaginous on-camera salesmanship for Wachovia and its brilliant chief executive, a Cramer friend and former boss, just two weeks before it, too, collapsed. What should really terrify the White House is that Cramer last month gave a big thumbs-up to Timothy Geithner’s bank-rescue plan.

"In one way, though, the remaining vestiges of the past decade’s excesses, whether they live on in the shouted sophistry of CNBC or in the ashes of Stanford’s castle, are useful. Seen in the cold light of our long hangover, they remind us that it was the America of the bubble that was aberrant and perverse, creating a new normal that wasn’t normal at all."

Frank Rich is right on about the sophistry yelled and screamed at viewers by CNBC market "gurus." I don't know who is the worst on CNBC, they are all pretty bad. Rich did not name others exhibiting symptoms of equal irrational Obama animus. How about mean Michelle Cabruso Cabrera who asks why her tax dollars should help Detroit as if Detroit caused its own demise by being mostly black. Or Maria Bartiromo who condemns Obama for wanting to make the tax code fairer because it will raise taxes on those who make more than 250K, which certainly includes herself and her multi-millionaire spouse. Or Joe Kernen who believes government should stay out of the free market place unless his own 401k is on the line, in which case, he's all for government bailout.

To be fair, there are several CNBC hosts who come across in favor of fairness and rationality, such as John Harwood and Steve Liesman. But these guys are in the minority. Most of the others on CNBC seem to be bitten by the Republican sourness bug and so suffer from the "what's in it for me" syndrome.

With all this anti-Obama Republican venom spewed on CNBC, I find myself watching less and less.

CNBC CATERS TO REPUBLICANS, BLAMES OBAMA FOR STOCKS' DECLINE AND OTHER WORLD EVILS

Have you noticed all the Republicans on CNBC's market shows during the day trying to pin the stock market's fall on Barack Obama? Some of the worst shills for Republican spin are Larry Kudlow, Michelle Cabruso Cabrera and Maria Bartiromo. These people love to say that Obama's budget and/or tax policy is (are) the cause of stocks going down, as if Obama started the present precipitous fall instead of inheriting it from Bush, or that he caused the banks for the last several years to purchase billions of mortgages whose risk they had not a speck of understanding.

I am tired of all the whining and carping that this whole mess, created by Bush and his policy of deregulating banking, securities and housing regulations, is somehow all the fault of Obama.

Did I mention Jim Cramer as a member of CNBC's conservative chorus? Cramer calls Obama a "socialist," thus dating himself as growing up in the 40s and 50s. This guy knows nothing. Consider that this is the same Cramer who recommended his viewers purchase Wells Fargo at 35, Goldman Sachs at 190, and Bank of America at 40. Look where these stocks are now, cut in half or thirds. So Cramer is no expert even though that's what his oversized ego would like to pretend.

CNBC'S HOSTS - NICE GUYS & THE MEANIES

The stock market seems to have no bottom, with stock prices going down several hundred points per day. Today was no exception. The DJIA fell over 400 points. Thus this might be an appropriate time to describe some of the people who populate CNBC's market coverage.

1. Pete Najarian, a panelist on Fast Money - a loud-mouth who believes his points are stronger when he yells them. Pete always tries to recommend options. Of course, he and his brother John Najarian own and operate a retail options firm. Nice tie-in, right?

2. Joe Kernen, one of the hosts of Squawk on The Street - not too nice a person. Always takes the side against labor unions, Democrats, and against government intervention except when that intervention will safeguard the value of his own 401(k), as in the 700 billion+ bailout of Wall Street banks.

3. Michelle Cabruso Cabrera - a tough girl from NYC. She smiles too much. Her politics are suspect - she always seems to side with the Republican shills like CNBC's reporter Charlie Gasparino, The Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore and CNBC's house idiot Larry Kudlow.

4. Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money - about the only bright spot in today's blog lineup. Cramer frequently gets his stock picks bashed after he recommends them, but this might be the result of his enemies on the street shorting precisely those stocks he selects. But Cramer has been right on the general direction of this market - DOWN. Cramer has been urging his viewers over the past year to lighten up on their stock portfolios. And Cramer has been right to stress that without assistance for besieged homeowners in danger of foreclosure, the market will tank and everyone's 401(k) will be decimated.

More in later posts.

CNBC THINKS EVERY INVESTOR IS A MEAN REPUBLICAN

I have complained on numerous occasions to CNBC about some of its hosts and guests and their false statements about Obama, especially about his tax proposal. I strongly object to statements made by Maria Bartiromo that Obama is going to raise taxes. Bartiromo fails to qualify that statement with Obama's desire to lower taxes for people earning less than 250K.

Additionally, I recognize undercurrents of pro-Republican bias, sometimes quite blatant, in Michelle Cabruso Cabrera and Charlie Gasparino.

Of course, Larry Kudlow is a Republican shill who takes every opportunity to bash Democrats. The same for Joe Kernen.

About the only ones who seem to be fair are Mark Haynes, Steve Liesman, Melissa Francis and Jim Cramer and maybe one or two others.

I am a stock and bond investor. Not every investor is a mean pro-Republican. But the majority of actors on CNBC seem to think the opposite.