Jim Cramer, the wildly energetic host of CNBC's "Mad Money" and co-founder of TheStreet.com, is a bull in a bear market. He rushes from one topic to another -- his long-term picks, CEO compensation, averting a crash. In addition to his autobiography, "Confessions of a Street Addict," the father of two daughters also authored several self-help investment books, his latest being "Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)."

---

PG audio

Listen to audio of this interview.

---

Q: In your interview last week with Sen. Hillary Clinton, she proposed the idea of international oversight when it comes to financial markets. Is that feasible?

A: Yeah ... it's in everybody's interest. If you listen to what happened with Bear Stearns, it was a group of European banks that were in trouble. So it certainly makes a lot of sense. It's kind of imperative. The takeaway of what happened here, this was all one nation basically. This was not a U.S. issue.

Q: Did we avert an all-out crash by bailing out/merging Bear Stearns?

A: Definitely.

Q: If someone as savvy as you can be blindsided by a Bear Stearns debacle, what chance does the little guy have?

A: I think the takeaway has to be that you should take less risk. I don't think that's wrong. I think people should try to take less risk to make money.

Q: CEOs of failed companies, including Bear Stearns, are handsomely compensated. Why isn't some of the compensation taken away and used to help pay stockholders, creditors and with bailouts?

A: I don't know how these boards can live with themselves. They gave these packages [beforehand, before all the issues came home to roost]. What happens is they go to a compensation consultant and the compensation consultant says "OK look, the person at Goldman is making this. That is how you defend the package.'' ... The much-criticized Eddie Lampert at Sears doesn't take any money. He just has a lot of stock. If the stock goes up, he does great. He doesn't have a salary.

Q: Did you recommend Schering-Plough and Sears Holdings because you knew the CEOs?

A: Well, I mean I made a fortune at my hedge fund in Pharmacia & Upjohn, which [Schering-Plough CEO] Fred Hassan ran [at the time] and before that with Wyeth's [pharmaceutical business], which Fred Hassan ran. Sears, I bought that stock for my charitable trust at $50, and then it tripled.

Q: But you were still recommending Sears Holdings when it was up near $160 (it's now trading around $106).

Q: Oh, no, I got it completely wrong. ... You have to understand, although the rap on me is that I'm rapid fire in and out, I am not that. The reason why I rode it up and rode it down, Sears and Schering-Plough, is that I don't intend to sell them. So I'm going to be wrong over varying periods of time. Should I have changed my mind on Schering (which is trading near its 52-week low of $13.83)? Yeah. But when you are running money for a charity, you know, you're not going to churn your charity.

Q: On one of your college tours last year, you advised a young investor that Google and Sears Holdings and Goldman Sachs were all good long-term plays. Still true? And what do you consider long term?

Q: Yeah, absolutely I continue to [recommend them as long-term plays]. I think over the next 10 years, those are going to be gigantic companies. Right now, there's a slump in advertising, but Google, [which has] 6 percent of the advertising market now, should get 10 percent of the advertising market. If it does that, it's going to earn a huge amount. So that's a play on the migration that everybody agrees [is happening, with] TV, radio, print losing money to the Web. [With] Sears, you're in Eddie Lampert's hedge fund. His hedge fund was the No. 1 performing hedge fund from 1988 until a year ago, and you're now in since his biggest position is Sears. Goldman Sachs is the only one that wasn't destroyed by mortgages.

Q: Has "Mad Money" increased subscribers to TheStreet.com?

A: Yeah, definitely. But when I do something on "Mad Money," for the most part the stocks that I recommend, I do not own for my charitable trust ... that's just not right.

Q: So are you living the dream now doing both things you love, journalism and stocks?

A: No, I'm not living the dream. Frankly, I wish I weren't doing stocks. I would just like to do journalism. It's too hard. I've been working too hard. I would tell you the show's a dream and everything else is work.

Q: Are your girls interested in being Wall Street traders?

A: Not the least bit. They hate it. They hate it. I mean, I want to emphasize that, they hate it.