The cover story on this week's Barron's is likely to get attention for a long time, and may even serve to drive down the price of TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM), Jim Cramer's company. Journalist Bill Alpert takes a look at the track record for Cramer's picks on his show Mad Money.

According to Alpert, "a comprehensive and careful review of his stock picks by Barron's finds that his picks haven't beaten the market. Over the past two years, viewers holding Cramer's stocks would be up 12% while the Dow rose 22% and the S&P 500 16%, according to a record of 1,300 of the CNBC star's Buy recommendations compiled by YourMoneyWatch.com, a Website run by a retired stock analyst and loyal Cramer-watcher."

I would never dream of buying any stock based on Cramer's recommendation, and here's why: Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors in the world ever, has often said that he can only find a few good investment ideas per year. All you need is a few in your life to do well. How about Jim Cramer? He gives a few stock picks per show, five days a week, and then gives dozens more buy and sell calls on the Lightning Round each week.

This flies in the face of what most people understand about the markets. We can argue about the extent of their efficiency (Burton Malkiel would argue that nearly every stock is perfectly priced all the time) but the idea that anyone, even a guy who bites heads off of bears, could find so many market inefficiencies each day is absurd. If Cramer can do that, how come almost no one can beat the market? Cramer makes it too easy -- except, according to the Barron's report, he doesn't really. He just pretends to on TV.

President Bush in his State of the Union address called for the United States to become less dependent on foreign oil. The solution: corn-based Ethanol?

Every farmer in the US is going to be planting corn this season. Why? Because corn prices are approaching 10-year highs and there is money to be made. The higher prices will incent greater corn production which will be used in the production of more ethanol. Ergo, our reliance on foreign oil would materially diminish. MAYBE.

The first problem with this scenario is that higher prices lead to greater supply which at some point lowers corn prices.

Another problem, which was acutely pointed out in Bill Alpert's Follow-up article in Barron's (subscription required), is that corn and soy framers would run out of arable land before they could produce the amount of corn or soy needed to provide a viable alternative to foreign energy. If the US did go all out to produce enough alternative fuels, the price of the commodity and underlying land would become so expensive, it would be cheaper to use imported oil or gas. The market will become aware of this reality at some point that corn is not the solution.

Another very important point is that in order to grow things you need a lot of fertilizer which contains nitrogen. Crops cannot grow without nitrogen. Where does nitrogen-based fertilizer come from -- natural gas. To grow all these alternative fuel crops, you would need a lot of natural gas to make the fertilizer. Somewhat of a vicious cycle.

My investment advice: Stay with buy low and sell high. Stay with what we blogged about last week. Invest in cotton whose price is bottoming and stay away from corn whose price is peaking. Alternative fuel crops have very tough economics.