Ever heard of a TV clown called Jim Cramer? He is the 60-something Mad Money financial stock-picking Booyah guru from CNBC and King of Prussia, NJ?

Have you ever acted on his Mad Money picks? If you are reading this, presumably you still own a computer connection and a shirt, so, I guess the answer is "no!"

Not everyone rates Cramer!

He might be good for an entertaining rant or two (The Feds know nothing) but on balance, you are probably wise to take Cramer's stock-picking advice with a healthy dose of credit crunchy salt! Here's why.

I was reading a report in a forum by a guy who ran a Mad Money paper portfolio. He lost "money". So what, they may say, one failure doesn't make Cramer a schill.

Not daunted by his abject poverty, this guy ran a real portfolio, with real money, and claims he did the opposite of what Cramer said. When Cramer yelled, "Buy, buy, buy." he sold, sold, sold, and vice versa. He did this 153 times. Out of 153 Cramer calls, he flipped the TV schill's advice on its head, and made money 132 times. Make what you will of that anecdote.

A closer look at Mad Money's Cramer

There are loads of "better" TV entertainers out there, (Colbert is king of my TV castle) but Cramer is talk-worthy because he performs his show in the dry world of stocks and shares.

The first time I saw a clip of the show, the Lightening Round, I was transfixed by the showmanship. 15 seconds later I was holding my ears, thinking. "The second there's a lull in this racket, I'm turning the volume right down to 1." I did exactly that, and it was still too loud, so I took a pair of binoculars and listened to the show from the comfort of a seat out in the garden. High-pitched crazy talk.

But, shrillness aside, to be fair, he is very entertaining.

Funny money

Cramer is not without wit and humor. He once invested in a company offering psychiatric services. He justified it as a good move at a time when hedge fund managers were jumping off buildings. I guess he needs to come up with a few more tips like that - for auto CEOs and the rest of 'em!

When he isn't chopping off plastic bears' heads with his Bowie knife, he is inventing yet another permutation of his Southern booyah catch phrase. Cramer also likes to be slightly anarchic, regularly reminding folks that he took an MA in Communism at Harvard.

To Euro readers this red reference probably seems un-noteworthy, but in the USA, for some reason, Communism is still a semi taboo subject. So, forget that millions of people just got repossessed and owe their broker a pension or two, Cramer dared mention the "c" word on national TV.

Why follow Cramer?

Apparently he has a following of millions of ordinary people who have put their faith in his ability to buy and sell stocks. That is Mad! A bit like planning your kid's future on the basis of an info-mercial.

But he has a good track record, they say. He was one of the financial stars of the 90's, calling that particular crash ahead of time. So what! He once made money off a half billion dollar fund when everyone else was losing their shirt? Lucky Jim. We all know what track records are like, anyway - OJ Simpson had a fairly good one didn't he! Personally, I think Cramer is trading off the fruits of a lucky past.

Now he runs a charitable trust, owns no shares of his own, and gimps around on a TV show at age 63. He has called more bottoms than a bum bandit, and advised people to leave the stock market for 5 years - probably the time when Wall St will make its biggest advances in decades... So do you really want to do everything a guy like that says?

What can Cramer teach us about stock-picking?

Cramer does have merit as a source of financial advice. He finds interesting ways of looking at stocks and shares to buy into. Mystical microtrends in tea leaves (buy tea futures), a break in the weather (buy recession-proofed umbrellas), contrarian views... (the tide mark on his bath is getting crustier- time to buy even more Unilever...)

He may have friends all over the financial quarter, but he does like to blow the lid on Wall Street practices. For instance, when the stock market isn't melting down, do you know how the big fund boys traditionally operate towards the end of a quarter? Traditionally, 80% of all fund managers fail to outperform the market, so towards the end of every quarter they try to compensate for their inadequacies by driving the price of a good stock down - just in time for them to buy more and ride the surge back up at reporting time. That is how they keep the herd willing to invest in their loser funds.

Now you know! When the Dow gets above its pre 2000 levels again, you can invest with a little extra knowledge of how it all works.

On a closing note of irony

One Cramer mantra is to never act on a stock tip from friends, or from anyone for that matter! Bottom line, according to Jim, a nod and a wink to buy a certain stock is a signal to avoid that stock. Either a hustler is trying to create demand for a crap company, or the news is insider info and illegal or... you get the idea.

What would happen to his show if the followers of Cramer acted on that tip!