Roubini: CNBC's Jim Cramer A "Buffoon"
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TORONTO — CNBC's Jim Cramer has another feud on his hands.
Just weeks after "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart took Cramer to task for trying to turn finance reporting into a "game," famous bear economist Nouriel Roubini criticized Cramer on Tuesday for predicting bull markets.
"Cramer is a buffoon," said Roubini, a New York University economics professor often called Dr. Doom. "He was one of those who called six times in a row for this bear market rally to be a bull market rally and he got it wrong. And after all this mess and Jon Stewart he should just shut up because he has no shame."
Cramer, the host of CNBC's "Mad Money" show, recently wrote in a blog that Roubini is "intoxicated" with his own "prescience and vision" and said Roubini should realize that things are better since the stock market's recent bottom in early March.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index has rallied 17 percent since then.
Roubini said in 2006 that the worst recession in four decades was on its way. He has attracted attention for his gloomy _ and accurate _ predictions of the U.S. financial market meltdown.
Roubini said the latest surge is just another bear market rally following the pattern of other rallies after the government intervened. He expects the market will test the previous low because of worse-than-expected macroeconomic news, disappointing earnings and because banks will fail after the stress tests come out.
"Once people get the reality check, than it's going to get ugly again," Roubini said.
Roubini said Cramer should keep quiet.
"He's not a credible analyst. Every time it was a bear market rally he said it was the beginning of a bull and he got it wrong," Roubini said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Asked Wednesday if he thinks the market will touch the low again, Cramer said on CNBC: "We'll we got that guy Nouriel Roubini and he attacked me today, which I regard a great badge of honor. As all my attackers, I always welcome you on "Mad Money." I think we are not going to see that level again."
Cramer said if the Dow Jones industrial average goes below 7,000 and the S&P hits 650, buyers will come in because there would be a ferocious rally and investors couldn't afford to miss another.
Cramer has previously conceded he made some wrong calls, like most people watching the market. But he went on "Today" last October telling people that if they needed money in the next five years, take it out of the stock market. Anyone who heeded that advice saved money, he said.
Roubini said he supports Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's plan to remove toxic assets from the banks. Cramer recently wrote that Roubini and Nobel laureate New York Times columnist Paul Krugman are both on "the nationalization jihad."
"He keeps insulting me personally and saying a bunch of lies," Roubini said. "He doesn't even know I was supporting it so he says lies."
Roubini made the comments before appearing with bank analyst Meredith Whitney and Canadian bears Ian Gordon and Eric Sprott at a Toronto event titled "A Night with the Bears." They all correctly predicted the current financial meltdown.
Whitney, among the most bearish of bank analysts, said that some of the 19 banks undergoing government stress tests may not pass.
"I think the big banks will get through and some of the smaller banks may not," Whitney said in an interview with The AP.
Gordon, author of The Long Wave Analyst newsletters, told the event's audience of 1,500 that he expects the Dow Jones industrial average to plummet to 1,000 based on the idea that economic events repeat themselves in regular sequence every 60 years or so.
Sprott, a Canadian hedge fund owner, told the predominantly business crowd that systemic risk remains and that investors should buy gold.
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ROB GILLIES 04/ 8/09 01:17 PM ET Associated Press