So there’s this US stock market TV show hosted by a fellow named Jim Cramer. I’ve never actually seen it, since I live in China, but I’m not that keen anyway on watching a bunch of traders and analysts tell each other what stocks to buy. Pardon the graphic language, but I think “circle jerk” might be an appropriate term for that sort of television programming.

I’ve long suspected that these guys are not only completely corrupt (conflict of interest problems stemming from the needs of their financial services advertisers) but are also completely clueless once you get a block or two away from Wall St.

Jim Cramer’s show this week included some sage advice on what US companies are doing in China and how it relates to the PRC’s stimulus plan:

Cramer said today’s conference call by Alcoa, the first of the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to report its earnings, laid out a pattern that he fears will be followed by other companies.

He said Alcoa delivered better-than-expected earnings, with a smaller-than- expected loss, but was only able to do so by firing workers in America and investing more in China.

Citing Alcoa’s CEO Klaus Klinefeld, Cramer said that much of the Chinese stimulus package went toward huge “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects. In addition, the Chinese government focused on promoting consumption, and for the first time, the Chinese will produce more cars than the U.S.

By contrast, the U.S. stimulus included large handouts to the states and extensions of unemployment benefits, said Cramer. Our government, he said, is focused on anti-business initiatives like cap and trade, and not on job creation or promoting consumption.

Cramer said the pattern will likely be repeated, with companies firing here so they can hire and expand in China. He said investors need to be defensive with their portfolios in of U.S. stocks, and need to get aggressive with their exposure to China.

OK, first, I really hope that Cramer is not taking what he heard about Alcoa and generalizing that for all US investors in China. ‘Cause that would certainly be stoopid.

Second (following from #1), just because the stimulus package here may help a company like Alcoa by spurring demand for raw materials, I fail to see how a huge number of US companies will benefit from infrastructure projects here. The stimulus is a lot of money, but it is not going to foreign companies for the most part, aside from maybe companies like Caterpillar.

Third, the Chinese government is interested in consumption and job creation and the US government is not? If I guy gets a job to build a bridge and is given a paycheck, which he then consumes, how is that different from the money spent by the guy who gets unemployment benefits? One could even argue that the unemployed guy is likely to spend an ever greater percentage than the guy working on the bridge, who might save some money. These comments make Cramer sound like he is spewing Republican talking points, so it’s hard for me to take the guy seriously as a “business journalist.”

Fourth, and most important, both the US and China are spending lots of money to stimulate their respective economies, to get them out of the temporary ditch they are in. Cramer doesn’t seem to like what the US government chose to spend that money on. Lots of folks also have criticized China’s package and its priorities, not to mention the asset bubble(s) that are being produced and the risky loans that are starting to weigh down the banking sector.

But let’s say that Cramer is right. The US stimulus sucks and the China one rocks. What will that mean? Best-case scenario is that the Chinese economy will pull out of the recession faster than the US, exactly when is anyone’s guess.

My point is that the stimulus is all about the short term. If the companies Cramer is talking about are making investment decisions based on the short-term effects of the two countries’ stimulus packages, well, that’s hard to believe.

I’m sure that there are US companies out there hoping to capitalize on short-terms trends here. However, because of the composition of the China stimulus package and the timing involved, your average American investor over here is thinking medium to long term. China is of course a good bet in the medium to long term, but this has very little to do with these stimulus policies.

Now there is an argument to be made that without a very strong boost in demand, the US economy will sputter for an extended period of time, a la the Japanese economy in the 90s. This is a real concern, one that could make the differences in stimulus packages a medium-term issue for investors. But the possibility is kind of far down the list of “What Ifs,” and besides, Cramer is not saying this anyway. Moreover, I would be surprised if a multinational company would shift significant resources from one market to another based on this theoretical possibility this early in the recession.

The above notwithstanding, I’m sure that the Wall St. traders Cramer pitches to every day will buy into his spiel about China — he’s got his own TV show and he worked “on the Street” for many years. Case closed.