Like many others, I think the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer colloquy on The Daily Show was a great, straightforward explication of some of the issues that have caused the recent financial havoc in the financial markets and more important, how the screaming heads on tee vee threw fuel (by which I mean, our retirement funds) on the fire.

Watch both segments of the interview and take note of the good points Jon Stewart makes. There is, however, one point he didn’t make is that Jim Cramer’s network – CNBC – is owned by General Electric, as is NBC. When Mr. Cramer and his colleagues get on the screen and scream “BUY! BUY! BUY!” or “SELL! SELL! SELL!,” there are people at GE who are giving them their screaming orders because they think that manipulating the market via CNBC will help GE’s corporate bottom line.

This notion is not disproved by the fact that GE stock has lost three-quarters of its value since last October, it just shows that the GE stock jocks, like so many of their Wall Street fellows, don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Jim Cramer was a rich man before he got his own tee vee show. He’s even richer now. That he chooses to act like a buffoon on his show is his choice, but why does he let his bosses at GE destroy his reputation for mere money?

It’s a disease.