Idiotic Lawsuit Dept. A couple from Northern California have filed a $5 million lawsuit against Air Canada alleging the airline lost their 14-year-old cat during a Toronto-to- San Francisco flight last year. $5million in exchange for a senescent cat sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Stacy Tabb's daughter is getting off to a good start in life
If It Doesn't Make Sense, Don't Buy It Because I operate a respected website that provides financial information, I occasionally get e-mails from charlatans and idiots trying to sell some worthless investment scheme or book. Like this one. In his e-mail to me the author wrote:
What difference does it make if the fund is in a downtrend? You should be OUT and not worry about expenses. Cash is a position that will give a greater return than a loss. Buy and hold will not work in a secular bear market that can last for years.His book, If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It, is supposed to tell us how to "Earn 30 to 50% Annually With Your Mutual Funds Working Less Than One Hour Per Month", which depends on forecasting market movements, which if there was a reliable way to do that, who in their right mind would bother to keep their day job, or publish their secrets in a $25 book? (The long-term real annual return in the U.S. stock market, after all costs and taxes has historically been about 3%, by the way) No, the only way to enjoy this kind of phenomenal success is to sell investment books to suckers, because there is one born every minute. Just don't you be the one.
If Saudi Arabia is a sandbox with an oil well, this article helps confirm that Jordan is little more than a sandbox without an oil well. Their king is decent guy for that part of the world, as was his late father much of the time. But an entire country for one helpful family?
San Francisco's proposal to host the 2012 Olympic Games has reached the U.S. final round, along with New York. New York can have the games, if their taxpayers are dumb enough to ask to host them. As for me, I'd rather my local government figure out how to run its police and school departments worth a damn, before they raise my taxes in order to subsidize a money-losing sports and entertainment festival.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 28, 2002 05:43 PM