Cliff Mason, nephew of Jim Cramer, is pretty fly for a connected guy. His interests include water sports (in his Chelsea hot tub), babe magnetism and bubbles (market and live-in). Cliff is profiled in the latest issue of Harvard alum clean-up towel 02138. Some highlights:
Cliff has two well paying jobs. No, really, his jobs pay well. We can’t reiterate this enough, much like the magazine article. His two jobs are writing contrarian things for (the sake of being contrarian) TheStreet.com and writing for Mad Money. I’m not sure what these two things have in common, but it might rhyme with Schmuncle.
Cliff Mason lives in Chelsea, and has a hot tub, which goes against Cliff’s initial attempts to be a hobo living purely off family wealth provided from many generations of successful financiers and the occasional television personality. An excerpt:
Before taking the internship at Mad Money, Mason imagined himself as a writer living a bohemian life. “I didn’t want to work at all,” he says. Two years later, he lives in a two-bedroom apartment with hot tub that he owns in Manhattan’s trendy Chelsea neighborhood, where comparable apartments generally run well over a million dollars.
Despite a diet of seedless grapes and a steady regimen of worship at local Chelsea churches (Equinox), Mason puts up the investment banking aesthetic façade:
Mason has thinning, sandy-colored hair, glasses, and pale skin whose only glow comes from the light of computer monitors.
Did we mention that Cliff Mason makes a load of cash? We’re talking pre-iPhone price cut purchase sort of income. Cliff Mason has more money than he can spend, which is why he can spring for babe-magnet devices like an iPhone:
In one recent video segment, Mason confessed to buying the iPhone because it is “pretty cool” and a “babe magnet.” People earning less than $50,000 could probably spend their money more wisely, he conceded, but that was not his situation, and in any case, he was so busy, he lacked the time to spend all the money he made.
Conclusion – it is tough to be Cliff Mason.
Making Mad Money [02138]
Posted by CatHairSweater , Sep 06, 2007 1:42PM
..douche alarm...
DING DING DING
Posted by AJ , Sep 06, 2007 1:46PM
Jimbo... you gotta make Cliff avoid things like this that make him seem like, well, as pointed out above, a douche.
Posted by Jim Kramer , Sep 06, 2007 1:49PM
What a homo! (and I mean that literally)
Posted by Jamie.BuchersGhost , Sep 06, 2007 1:50PM
AJ if u haven't noticed....Jimbo's not the most....humble person in NYC....plus he's too busy undressing Erin with his eyes...
not that we all don't.....just not on live television
Posted by the red ant , Sep 06, 2007 1:59PM
kudos, KH. the church/equinox comment was creative
Posted by ian , Sep 06, 2007 2:02PM
you missed the best line --
“I know all the acronyms, stupid shit that anybody that works at CNBC should know,” he says. ”Price-to-earnings-to-growth, stuff like that.”
Posted by Zima , Sep 06, 2007 2:17PM
Did Mike's Hard Lemonade run out of advertising budget...and I was so close to being brainwashed into buying a 4 pack today after work...
Posted by JT , Sep 06, 2007 2:35PM
I think Mike's Hard blew their load on all the ads in the subway stations.
Makes ya feel good knowing that they lump us into the same target demographic as the homeless guys who live down there don't it.
Posted by AJ , Sep 06, 2007 2:44PM
Jamie - While its true Jimbo's not the most humble person, after his vigorous defense of Cliff last time he appeared on dealbreaker, I thought we'd be seeing less of the poor boy
Posted by , Sep 06, 2007 2:45PM
“I know all the acronyms, stupid shit that anybody that works at CNBC should know,” he says. ”Price-to-earnings-to-growth, stuff like that.”
Wow. This douche coauthored a book on equity investing strategies? Why would Schmuncle tarnish what little is left of his credibility by engaging in this sort of nepotism with this sort of douchebag? We must also ask, which incompetent executive at CNBC allowed Cramer to list his nephew as an author of Mad Money the book? The mystery doesn't end here. How did Cliff's unmitigated douchebaggery go unnoticed by the Harvard admissions committee? Maybe Harvard should verify the resume of its Dean of Admissions ... especially in light of the incident down the street at MIT. Even more perplexing is how the editor of 02138 completely missed the whole douchebag angle on Cliff Mason? Doesn't the people over at 02138 read Dealbreaker? Did they not see the iphone post and Cramer's subsequent attempts at damage control?
I'm not angered by the fact that Cliff and his uncle are leading millions of people into malinvestments, making the markets less efficient. That just makes life easier for those whose job it is to make the markets more efficient. But I fear if word of Cramer's blatent nepotism ever reaches his idiotic audience, it would seriously damage his ability to direct so lemmings off a cliff.
Posted by Jamie.BuchersGhost , Sep 06, 2007 3:14PM
AJ.....i stand corrected!!!!
forgot all about that.....
Posted by Puh-leez , Sep 06, 2007 3:14PM
It is clearly genetic. The uncle is an industry shill (and I mean that in the nicest three card monte way) and the nephew is a toad.
Posted by Byrne , Sep 06, 2007 3:15PM
Cramer's been grooming him for a while. In his first book, Cramer talks about hiring Cliff to deliver flyers marketing TheStreet.com.
Posted by PJ , Sep 06, 2007 4:45PM
hmm, he also majored in social studies, which obviously qualifies him to dispense financial advice. they should add his plaque in the dbag hall of fame with timmay, varner and mr positive carry. and his philosophy of "spend now, save later" may work for jerkoffs who can rely on nepotism for a sinecure or daddy's HF money, but odd lots in kansas city might want to take advantage of a 401(k).
Posted by MG , Sep 06, 2007 5:25PM
Does Harvard really have a major in Social Studies? That's a term I haven't heard since middle school - before graduating to big kid classes called "History" in high school.
Between admitting Cliff and then allowing him to "major" in Social Studies, Harvard has just killed that tiny bit of respect I still had for it. I wonder if Cramer helped him make a papier mache native american village?
Posted by , Sep 07, 2007 12:15AM
“I don’t think I would have been fully immersed in my studies anyway,” Mason says. “It would have been, ‘Am I doing Mad Money, or am I sleeping 12 hours a day, getting trashed with my friends?’"
“I know all the acronyms, stupid shit that anybody that works at CNBC should know,” he says. ”Price-to-earnings-to-growth, stuff like that.”
"Unless Jim fires me. But my Mom would throw a phone at him, so I think I'm safe."
I can tell that Cliff has "finance in his blood." If only he had finance in his brain.
Posted by CNBC is for douchebags , Sep 07, 2007 12:26AM
MG, Harvard does have a major in "Social Studies." See http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~socstud/ ... Didn't you get the E-packet? It really is the same Social Studies as you know from elementary school. This elite Harvard program allows the successful candidate to sleep 12 per day, get trashed with his friends, and still manage to help his uncle make a fool of himself everyday on national television.
Posted by guest , Nov 03, 2008 2:11PM
haha you guys are awesome! Cliff=tard... didn't even make the whole word;) You should read some of his CNBC crap. Its pretty bad and boasts large words that just don't fit in...just like Cliff;)
Posted by guest , Nov 03, 2008 2:12PM
haha you guys are awesome! Cliff=tard... didn't even make the whole word;) You should read some of his CNBC crap. Its pretty bad and boasts large words that just don't fit in...just like Cliff;)