Stocks As Crummy Merchandise.

From Jim Cramer's Stay Mad For Life.

"Perhaps the widest gulf that I see between amateurs and professionals s a belief among 'home gamers' that a company wouldn't have a stock if it weren't the real deal. Amateurs don't have any concept that there are whole periods, like the one from 1999 to 2001, when almost every single stock was no good. Pros recognize that there is a lot of crummy merchandise that should never have been created. Amateurs think that when a company goes public it is as good as any other company that goes public. Pros are much more skeptical."