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Cramer on BloggingStocks: Worse after Lehman? Are you kidding me?

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TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says everyone in the trenches knows we're better off now -- only the academics disagree.

Am I nuts, or am I missing something? One year after the financial system was brought to its knees, we are back in the mid-9000s and we have taken off the table massive bank risk and are well on our way to recovery.

I keep listening to people like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz say the banking system is worse off now and I say to myself, "That's just stupid and wrong and anti-empirical and actually just silly." Anyone who knows what's really going on has to feel this way. And where was Stiglitz when some of us were running around trying to save things?

I also hear there is less discipline and we are all back to doing all the things we shouldn't be. How can anyone think that? We have no shadow banking system anymore, and we have bankers who fear for their jobs every day if they securitize some sort of junk paper, and we know that bad securitizing and egregious selling to accounts that were unsophisticated -- the big commission, where the big fees were -- is history.

Sure, we saw Corus Bank (NASDAQ: CORS) (Cramer's Take) shut this weekend, but we should have shut that years ago along with some other atrocious banks like Downey and Bank United but FDIC chief Sheila "Sainted" Bair was spending too much time meddling with Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take). (She still is.)

But when people get together on Wall Street, the first thing people talk about is "considering all the trillions lost, we are doing pretty well."

I was writing here endlessly when things were getting worse that we had to fill all the black holes -- Lehman, AIG (NYSE: AIG) (Cramer's Take), Fannie (NYSE: FNM) (Cramer's Take) and Freddie (NYSE: FRE) (Cramer's Take), GM, Washington Mutual and Wachovia -- before we could start anew. I was concerned about Citigroup. I thought the government would shutter Huntington (NASDAQ: HBAN) (Cramer's Take) and Fifth Third (NASDAQ: FITB) (Cramer's Take) and Zions (NASDAQ: ZION) (Cramer's Take) and Regions Financial (NYSE: RF) (Cramer's Take). They seemed like naturals.

What happened? Other than the botched Lehman play, where it was easily possible to save it but they didn't want to because of "moral hazard," all of these have been taken care of, some more expensively than others, but this was not a "Japan" solution for certain.

We hear about commercial real estate that's about to collapse, but it won't if the economy turns around -- and it is -- because the banks will show forbearance.

Housing's moving -- sure, aided by the $8,000 tax credit, and you will have to be in contract in November, but rates and price are more important and they are cheap as can be.

Autos: "Cash for Clunkers" worked. Inventories are lean.

Shippers are optimistic; they are on the front lines.

Tech's made its first serious turn since the beginning of the Net, and it is led by the mobile Internet tsunami .

Retail's very strong, even though, again, I read endlessly that it isn't. Homework matters so much in this business, and I just have to presume that those who write that retail is weak don't realize that the paradigm has shifted and we are now in the mode of profitable sales, not profitless revs driven by same-store sales nonsense.

The commodities markets are healthy. We might be on the cusp of a gigantic new airline cycle.

We even have a chance to build out natural gas as our own fuel, to knock of some of our trade deficit.

The dollar's remarkably strong. Interest rates are remarkably low. When we come out of this period we will have a few really strong banks like Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) (Cramer's Take), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) and, yes, Citigroup.

None of these positives are being reflected in any headlines or stories that I read about Lehman Brothers.

The people who write and speak these untruths are as out of step as the people who criticized me when I said that people in the government knew nothing.

I was gratified that the Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, said I was right and early.

I believe I am right and early again.

Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman 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 had no positions in the stocks mentioned.

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Last updated: November 26, 2009: 12:22 PM

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