Original message to TSC to which Cramer responded:
> I posted the following on the SI board and convey it to you as editor in the hope that you might persuade your boss to reconsider his analogies. (Not trying to be politically correct, but if it is disturbing to a veteran like me who was never under hostile fire, I can't imagine what those who endured it or who lost loved ones must feel)
>
>I've learned a lot from his [Cramer's] writings as well as having been amused at times at some of his experiences, but I would skip a one-on-one meeting unless I wanted to accept that it would be a continuous lecture rather than an interaction.
>
> If I were a critic (and this gives me an opportunity to vent), I could think of a couple of things that he should forego. One habit that I find particularly offensive, and have privately e-mailed him without acknowledgment, is a non-veteran using military analogies and equating financial/investment transactions with being under hostile fire. It's probably my age and military experience but veterans never use those analogies because it is disrespectful to the dead and disabled and we understand the meaning of weaponry. I doubt if the public would tolerate the disrespect if he said that his "profits went up in smoke like the Treblinka chimneys" or "the Seller SS with their dogs were upon me in the Warsaw ghetto as I called for Berkowitz to get me out of here." [Yes, I do agree with him that "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the best war movies ever made. No, I do not think he is intentionally demeaning warfare or the military and he may even see it as some type of tribute to those who served in uniform.] >>
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> The private reply to me from one reader which expresses the sentiment much better was as follows:
>
> <<To: WTD ADMIREE
> Saturday, Aug 1 1998 3:55PM ET
>
> I didn't serve in the military, either, so I don't feel entitled to express my opinion in public -- but between you and me, from what I read and what I can imagine, anyone who has not been there doesn't know. They can't ever know; I can't ever know.
>
> Differences between the worst day in the market and any day in any war: a stock market player can go home at the end of the day, eat dinner with his children, and sleep in his own bed with his wife. He can say "no" to any particular deal or offer, and he can retire any time. And no matter what happens, a stock market trader ends the day with both arms and both legs attached to his body, both eyes still working, and his head still on top of of his neck where it belongs!>>
>
> Equating money management with warfare is extremely crass.
8/3 - Maybe I'm a minority of one but any other rational thoughts would be welcomed. |
