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Cramer on BloggingStocks: A fighting chance for the credit markets.

Posted Oct 13th 2008 12:06PM by Jim Cramer
Filed under: Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Politics, Federal Reserve, U.S. Bancorp (USB), Financial Crisis

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Finally, a plan that isn't elegant and dreamed up by a Federal Reserve that doesn't want to do anything but behind-the-scenes liquidity injections that have failed miserably and auction facilities that have done nothing.

Now, we just let the government own big stakes in banks in return for money and a pledge that they won't hoard it but lend it.

The European plan is simple: Give money to the banks, take shares back, and start the process over. If you graft that on the American plan to allow banks to sell bad real estate loans then you get a fighting chance to stabilize the system.

This scheme is a heck of a lot better than all of the little things that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has wanted to do to keep banks in business, and it also gives the banks a bridge before TARP kicks in.

Of course, it is pure socialism, so I suspect that somehow our government will screw it up in the name of laissez-faire free-market principles. But we are way too far along to quibble. I also expect that it will be perceived as a bank bailout, to which I say, again, "So what? We have spent more than a trillion dollars trying to avoid one and that hasn't worked."

Of course, some would say this puts banks on life support. But again, I am happy with life support because the alternative is simply a quick death and a four-bank solution -- Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) Wells Fargo (WFC) JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) and U.S. Bancorp (USB) If Citigroup (NYSE: C) takes the money and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) then we are done with the bank failures and seizures and we insist that in return for federal money you have to be willing to succumb if you can't do with the money given.

The usual Democratic objections -- fair housing to poor people, another stimulus plan that doesn't work and the like -- are now to be expected. These are more flies in the ointment.

But, if this stabilizes the credit markets it will have an impact on the oversold stock market and allow some lift and then some more recapitalizations and, yes, some mergers that take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime buys that we are seeing from investor dislocations. Of course, pick lightly, because what we are doing is avoiding a Great Depression and not a severe recession. The latter's most certainly on the way.

Random musings: Let's watch the oils as they have come down to levels reflecting $40 oil, which would jump-start a lot of businesses in themselves.

Jim Cramer is a director and co-founder of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO At the time of publication, Cramer was long Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.

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Tags: BAC, banks, Cramer, featured, GS, JIm Cramer, JimCramer, MS, TheStreet.com, USB, Wall Street, WallStreet, WFC

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Last updated: July 04, 2009: 09:13 AM

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