Jim Cramer is nothing, if not attention getting. Here are two different videos from Jim on the subprime situation that are quite interesting… I have presented them in chronological order for effect.

Now there are at least two different ways to react to this… the first is to point fingers and ridicule Cramer for having such short sighted opinions in the first interview (and in the second for saying things like “walk away from your house so you don’t lose your credit card”). The second way to react would be to quote John Maynard Keynes’s famous line, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

The more important one is a third response — realizing that, despite all the clown-like behavior, Cramer is in tune with the decision makers in the money centers on Wall Street. Only a few months ago almost everyone thought that subprime was contained, and that tranching up the subrpime loans made it safe and dispersed the risk far and wide.

The market slap-down that occurred last week is part of the process of many of these people coming to grips with reality. If Cramer is right on how dire the subprime situation is, how long will it take wall street to reposition itself for this new reality? How many bumps, swoons, and slippages will need to occur? Do we need more hedge funds to fail before reality sets in? Does it change the outlook for “containment”?

Ok, I’ll take some combination of responses 1 and 3… we should definitely ask the questions, but also point fingers and make fun of Cramer as frequently as possible…