They've Borrowed a lot of money to drill

Industrials: These companies are getting hit hard, including General Electric (GE), which has been noticeably present in the oil patch, and Dover, which was just downgraded from a hold to a sell.

Credit: "I don't want to finger any one company because we don't know how they're hedged, and we don't want to cause a panic. But there are stocks down 30, 40 and 50 percent in a matter of weeks and it's not because they're oil and gas companies. It's because they've borrowed a lot of money to drill, more than their current cash flow can cover," said Cramer. The extended credit could cause a real issue if stocks don't come back up. However, there are positive ripple effects to gasoline that Cramer thinks we cannot forget about. Gasoline is always a large expense for companies that need to get their products on the market. That means the numbers will favor those companies.

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Cramer's spells out oil's worst case scenarios

My thought is that GE has been in the business a long time and weathered the Great Recession even with it's credit department having troubles by selling off accounts to other companies along the way. I'm sure GE will be equally creative now. But, Cramer does make a good point in that any stock directly or indirectly involved in oil and even stocks not involved in oil likely are going to be affected by all this either directly or indirectly. 

However, if you are a long term investor all this might have no meaning in the long run. If you are a long term investor you are thinking in terms of 5 to 10 years ahead in the market already. So, as long as there is a recovery at some point you will be just fine.

But, it might be important to see the stock market in terms of something more similar to what happened just before World War II in the late 1930s   because of what is happening in the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea and China economically. So, if you study what happened during World War II to the stock market that might be useful to you too.

Another factor is how Ebola devastates economies it hits in Africa as well. So, any business dealings in Ebola ravaged countries are going to be affected directly or indirectly by Ebola there.