CNBC Endorses ‘Pillaging the Earth’

If you have any doubts that the media is aiding and abetting the worst corporate marauders in pillaging and plundering the planet, you need only watch an episode of CNBC's Mad Money hosted by Jim Cramer.

Cramer spent the "Mad Money" show telling viewers why they should invest in companies that "pillage the earth" of its natural resources.

He attributes their appeal not just to economic growth in the US, but also "industrialization in what he calls the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China."

If you want to build buildings, machinery or roads, you need raw materials, like iron and nickel and copper and rock, he said. . . .

"Not one of the BRIC countries is finished. In fact, they're just getting started."

When asked if investors should invest in host countries like China or India, he replied:

Investors should stick with the companies that make their living out of mining and "we don't care about those host countries at all . . . [b]ecause the financials of those host countries are suspect[.]"

That is, you never know when revolution will dispossess corporate raiders of their assets.

Cramer then went on to share his six stock picks for making money off of the "bull market in minerals and their forceful extraction from the earth."

1. BHP Billiton - the Melbourne, Australia-based company is the "Mad Max of mineral stocks," the second-largest producer of copper in the world, the third-largest producer of nickel, fourth in uranium and fifth in aluminum and also mines zinc. BHP is the No.1 seaborne supplier of coking coal and manganese.

2. Freeport-McMoRan - the lowest-cost copper producer in the world and "Cramer likes companies that can keep their cost down."

   Most of their operations are in Indonesia where labor and land are cheap, "and bribing public officials is even less expensive," Cramer said. The New Orleans-based company will be big in gold and copper for years to come, and he recommended them as a buy.

   Don't worry about the company getting its copper in Indonesia, even if it is not considered a developed or stable nation, Cramer said. Freeport is one of the biggest tax payers and employers in Indonesia -- the government can even be considered as an extension of the company." It also awards a nice dividend of 2.4% and because the company generates so much cash, they are inclined to pay special dividends.

3. Rio Tinto - the "metal supermarket to the world." Cramer said its precious metals operations were OK, but this stock merits attention because of the ongoing industrial bull market.

   He said all of these companies should benefit from higher prices because the BRIC [countries] will create more demand.

   Cramer said any concerns about these companies' environmental practices or ethics should not bother investors. Individual investors will not stop the companies from strip mining. These companies are big and powerful and they get what they want. "[N]ever let your politics interfere with your investing," Cramer said.

4. Manitowoc - makes refrigeration equipment, and has a shipbuilding and maintenance business. But the main business to care about, Cramer said, is their "superior" mobile cranes.

   In addition to benefiting from mineral extraction, Manitowoc should also benefit from the highway bill and rebuilding the Gulf Coast.

5. Terex - makes heavy trucks and construction equipment and Cramer likes them for their hydraulic excavators and surface trucks for mining. [He suggests buying] stock on any weakness.

6. Caterpillar - his "best of breed" for the mining equipment sector. "They make the best mining trucks in the world," [he] said.

   [Caterpillar's] construction equipment business should benefit from the highway bill. Also, it broke its union in the 1990s, so it's not saddled with pension and health care costs that are facing other industrials.

   Caterpillar, Cramer said, "quite frankly is the best, and "you never need to apologize for buying the best."

CNBC must have mined him from the scum of the earth. They should have left him there.

But of course, if they had, they would no longer be America's worst enemy.