People I Can Do Without: Winter '09

a cross-eyed nun with a bullwhip and a bottle of gin"

"People I can do without: a cross-eyed nun with a bullwhip and a bottle of gin"

The greatest stand-up comedian of all time*, George Carlin, had a bit in the late 80’s called “People I Can Do Without“.  While his version included people like “a dentist who has blood in his hair”, I will keep mine strictly investment-related.

The Reformed Broker’s “People I Can Do Without”

  • Magazine editors and advertising executives who appear on financial news programs with strong opinions on anything other than being a magazine editor or an ad executive.
  • People who are mad at James Cramer because one of the 1200 stocks he may have mentioned favorably at some point isn’t higher than where they purchased it.
  • Institutional Wall Streeters who look down on retail Wall Streeters, although worse are retail guys who idolize institutional.
  • Bankruptcy attorneys reveling in their new bull market, the only one extant, regardless of what their prosperity means for everyone else.
  • Anyone hounding The Greatest CEO on the Planet, Steve Jobs, about his health (every single day that he is running the company is a gift to Apple shareholders).
  • New Yorkers who have never set foot in Texas or Oklahoma making bold predictions about the price of natural gas.
  • Commercial real estate professionals who insist that their real estate market will be immune to the deleveraging and bankruptcy cycle now upon us (buy a helmet).
  • Neo-Goldbugs who read an article about inflation, or the “Amero” (yeah, right) or a Peter Schiff interview and become prophets of gold and doom overnight (if everyone loves gold, btw, why can’t the contract price lift?).
  • Any broker who would take a client to eat at Ruth’s Chris in Manhattan when Del Frisco’s, BLT Steak, Bobby Van’s, Keane’s, and The Strip House are all within cabbing distance.
  • People who enjoy watching the Detroit Auto CEOs squirm and grovel on Capitol Hill for $14 Billion, but have no problem with the fact that the New York banking elite were handed a few hundred billion in a closed door meeting with virtually zero strings attached or oversight.

* Please, no emails about Richard Pryor or Lenny Bruce or Carrot Top…Carlin was and is The King, end of story.

Full Disclosure: I am currently long Apple (APPL) and Gold (GLD) in client accounts.

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Discussions found on the web
  1. larry commented on Jan 28

    unless you’re over 60, or have a victrola for your 33rpm’s, you can’t comment on Lenny Bruce or his unofficial and cleaned up off spring, Mort Sahl. But Carlin was as good as it gets for the longest time of any comedian, except Henny Youngman.

  2. larry commented on Jan 28

    unless you’re over 60, or have a victrola for your 33rpm’s, you can’t comment on Lenny Bruce or his unofficial and cleaned up off spring, Mort Sahl. But Carlin was as good as it gets for the longest time of any comedian, except Henny Youngman.

  3. larry commented on Jan 28

    unless you’re over 60, or have a victrola for your 33rpm’s, you can’t comment on Lenny Bruce or his unofficial and cleaned up off spring, Mort Sahl. But Carlin was as good as it gets for the longest time of any comedian, except Henny Youngman.

  4. Dinosaur Trader commented on Jan 28

    I’m a big fan of Richard Wright.

    As for people I can do without, can you add everyone who is already rooting against Obama just because he’s Obama?

    -DT

  5. Dinosaur Trader commented on Jan 28

    I’m a big fan of Richard Wright.

    As for people I can do without, can you add everyone who is already rooting against Obama just because he’s Obama?

    -DT

  6. Dinosaur Trader commented on Jan 28

    I’m a big fan of Richard Wright.

    As for people I can do without, can you add everyone who is already rooting against Obama just because he’s Obama?

    -DT