Marketing Meets Reality in a Collision. Reality Walks Away Unscathed.

Hey, Jim Cramer is coming to Penn State and people can't be happier.

"We are thrilled to welcome Jim Cramer and Mad Money to Penn State's Smeal College of Business," says Dean James B. Thomas. "Cramer brings an unrivaled energy and exuberance to the world of finance. He's been incredibly successful at getting young people, in particular, excited about business and the stock market. That's a goal we share at Smeal, so we aim to bring Cramer his largest, most spirited audience yet for a campus show."

Exuberance.....where have I heard that word used recently? Oh, it'll come to me. Oh, yeah! I remember.

"Irrational exuberance" is a phrase used by former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan in a speech given at the American Enterprise Institute during the stock market boom of the 1990s.

Now not all exuberance is irrational. But consider this video clip (H/T David Kurtz at TPM).

So just last week Jim Cramer was exuberantly advising people to hold on to Bear Stearns stock. I'd call that pretty irrational.

I wonder if in hindsight the dean of the B-school wishes he hadn't said

[Cramer's] been incredibly successful at getting young people, in particular, excited about business and the stock market. That's a goal we share at Smeal...

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