And it’s about time. During the numerous market panics over the past few years, we have seen Cramer pour gasoline on the fire. He was at it again on Thursday. At the end of the first video below, Cramer says:

“We have these banks. You don’t know what they really own because there’s absolutely very little clarity. And they don’t have enough capital. And they may have a window from an ECB, but in the end, even if they have to use it – we saw what happens, you get to the paper and it’s like panic is instilled by using it.”

Cramer was informing viewers that the situation has hopeless, that the ECB could do nothing to stop bank runs, and the situation was a state of panic. Gasoline, no? I mean, the market was already in a panic.

That’s why the great Simon Hobbs got in his face, as opposed to the other simpleton broadcasters on CNBC who should all be fired. What numbskulls!

Here comes Simon, and his pressure brought out a surprising revelation from Cramer:

It’s amazing that Cramer thinks his opinion about these things matters at all. I mean, did he really know anything about the situation at Bear Stearns? Was he in the loop, discussing matters with Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, and President Bush? I doubt it. And I’ll bet that he knows even less about the situation in Europe.

And yet, he makes these statements like he is Moses handing down commandments. WTF?

Cramer thinks that he has a fiduciary responsibility to yell fire in a crowded theater, because if he doesn’t, and a fire starts, people will be mad at him. Ridiculous.

But if Cramer knows that hedge funds (plural) were targeting European bank stocks, doesn’t he have a fiduciary responsibility to tell what he knows the SEC?

I’m no lawyer, but aren’t coordinated bear-raids a violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934?

At the 1:48 mark of the second video, Cramer says:

“I do know that there’s large hedge funds that are concerned about the liquidity of banks, and they’re gunna try to do what they did here.”

Meaning: cause a Lehman-like collapse.

Well, how about it Cramer? Are you going to use your inside information to save the day by informing the authorities about this conspiracy of hedge funds?

Part of Rick Santelli’s job on CNBC is to announce the unemployment-claims data every Thursday morning. And whenever the data is good, Santelli sneers at it, carrying on about how it will be revised, or why it’s not good enough, etc. If you got all of your information from Santelli, you might think that things were getting worse.

But clearly they are not. Here is a chart of the 4-week moving average of new unemployment claims, which you can see has been improving in recent weeks (click chart to enlarge):

And the spike up in the spring was almost certainly the result of assembly lines shutting down after running out of Japanese parts due to the earthquake/tsunami/meltdown.

Santelli can sneer all he wants, but people keeping their jobs is considered a good thing amongst normal people.

Santelli is a bad announcer. Mixing editorial opinions into the actual reporting is bad practice. If he wants to give an opinion after he reports the facts, that’s fine. But as it is, I never get a clear picture of the news from listening to him. I have to go to Bloomberg to see what actually happened.

With Santelli’s Tea Party downsizing the public sector all across the country, and the likes of Jeff Immelt still exporting private-sector jobs clear out of the country, it’s a miracle that claims are dropping at all. We may have a political disaster in Washington, and a financial disaster in Europe, but we do not yet have an economic disaster on Main Street – Sneeratelli notwithstanding.

When there is a banking crisis in Europe, Jean-Claude Trichet pours gasoline on it

In come circles, that is considered odd behavior.

Especially for a central banker.

But not in Europe. Over there, Trichet gets to keep his job.

Bizarre.

Say what you want about Ben Bernanke, but at least he tries to make things better. What did Bernanke do today to cause the huge rally? Nothing really. But at least he didn’t roll a grenade onto the NYSE trading floor like we saw Trichet do twice during the past week.

That makes a difference.

The McClellan Oscillator, which is a breadth momentum indicator, made a record low today. According to TradeStation data, it is now at -424.59, which is lower than both the TARP Crash low (-407.47), and the Flash Crash low (-414.13).

The selling stampede that we have just seen has been the most intense in at least 45 years. This doesn’t mean that it’s over though. The market could continue to drift downward at a more sedate pace. To see what that might look like, go back on your SPX chart to the two previous MacOs record lows:

October 9, 2008 – TARP Crash
May 20, 2010 – Flash Crash

In both cases you will see the market spending months carving out inverse head-and-shoulder reversal patterns before rallying back.

Recovering from the TARP Crash took a long time because the economy was in recession. Bouncing back from the Flash Crash was much quicker because the economy was expanding. At the moment, the economy is continuing to expand as we saw with Friday’s jobs report. If that holds up in the coming weeks, then the market has a decent chance of rallying back.

However, there is no sign at all of a reversal pattern on the chart yet. If one does indeed form, it will likely require weeks or months. If it is another inverse head-and-shoulders, then that means this current low is only the left-shoulder, and a lower-low at the head is coming.

The moral of the story is that there is no rush to catch the falling knife – even if you know for a fact that the market will be at new highs a year from now – which you don’t.