Ted Allrich is the founder of The Online Investor and author of the just released book: Comfort Zone Investing: Build Wealth And Sleep Well At Night. In this weekly column, he'll offer advice to investors who are just getting started.

Mutual funds are great ways to invest. They offer professional management and risk diversification, especially if it's a general fund such as large cap growth and income. The diversification is less if it's specialized such as healthcare, but there is still lower risk because the fund buys many different stocks in a sector. Many investors believe they're at a higher level than fund investing, one where they pick individual stocks and make better returns than mutual funds. That may be true, but most likely not for every investment.

By that I mean there is no way you can invest in China with a diverse group of stocks and know much about each company. And even if you can get information on a company, it's usually at least six months old. Imagine how much changes anywhere in six months, much less in a volatile economy like China. The initial reaction might be that things are even better now. But not necessarily for your company. Or when things do change, as every economic cycle does, you may be the last to know that the bubble burst six months ago for the sector in which your company operates.

Barron's cover story on Jim Cramer this week is a perfect August cover: beach reading about whether Cramer is a good stock picker.

Cramer and I went to college together and I was a board member at TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM), so I am not unfamiliar with Jim's career.

The Barron's piece starts out by saying the viewer of Cramer's show Mad Money would only have made 12% on Cramer's picks over the last two years. The magazine uses a firm called YourMoneyWatch to determine that. It tracks Cramer's stocks from when he tells viewers to buy them up until he says that they are "sells." In a chart, Barron's shows Cramer's performance against the two year advances of the Dow at 22% and the S&P at 16%.

Cramer has a wide following. His Mad Money show has 138,000 viewing homes according to Nielsen. Several hundred thousand more people read him through products at TheStreet. He is written about in the press several times a month, so Cramer is almost certainly the most widely followed stock guru in the country.

In my recent travels I was flipping through channels in my hotel room and came across James Cramer's Mad Money show. I could not believe my eyes; I think Cramer was lying down on the floor, hugging a Sponge Bob Square Pants doll. Did anybody else see that? Was I imagining?

This is a guy I used too look forward to hearing on the radio. He spoke with callers and discussed their portfolio's and how to diversify, offering solid advice to those interested in learning. I used to get in email discussions with Cramer years ago when he had the time to answer emails. This is a guy that had plenty of interesting ideas, and I know he still does... but I did not hear any that day. He went on to make some glib comments about a few stocks and took some calls but I found it entirely unwatchable after ten to fifteen minutes. I was amazed and bewildered. He backed up nothing that he said with the slightest depth of thought. Instead I witnessed him stab the doll with a knife and throw the mutilated doll across the room. Funny? Entertaining? Not to me ---- how sad I thought. This must be the end. He has gone wacko for ratings.

In Hollywood they have an expression they use when a television show has run out of ideas, They say "it has jumped the shark". This comes from a Happy Days episode, the long running TV show, where in one of the last shows Fonzie was surfing and jumps over a shark. You knew it was over when you saw that. Well that is the feeling I had when I saw Cramer curled up with Sponge Bob. He has jumped the shark! It's all over, and it is ironic that it came to pass that a creature of the sea was involved again.

Perhaps I'm wrong? Maybe I'm too serious? Has he gone too far? Is this necessary in a show about investing?

Check out my other posts for BloggingStocks here.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.