Harry Newton's In Search of The Perfect Investment
Technology Investor. Harry Newton
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9:00 AM EST, Thursday, February 19, 2009. Two
thoughts: Things are pretty bad. But they're also pretty good. Which to focus
on?
Bad:
The statistics are awful. The media focuses on gloom and doom. They're the
easy stories to write. Every day we read and see more gloom and doom. (But
we don't have to. Keep reading.)
Good:
Things are actually improving. We haven't had a "systemic breakdown."
The banking system is not healthy, but it hasn't died. Loans are flowing.
And now the Administration is moving from saving the banks to saving the economy.
It's easy to criticize the government's efforts. Throw enough money and in
enough directions. Some of it will stick, and is sticking. After a night with
our new local senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, I feel a lot better that the Administration
has actually thought some of this through.
The BIG news
is the world is brimming with great opportunities. New ideas are exploding.
New businesses are forming. I spent nearly two hours on the phone last night
with the president of a new bank (in organization). There are some fabulous
new ideas in banking that really will work. After the conversation I emailed
a bank director:
I'm very
impressed with our president.
I'm also depressed.
I think he's thought of everything I would do.
Except he thought of it BEFORE I did.
That's genuinely depressing thought.
I glanced through
my email this morning. Typical of newspaper and magazine headlines: Laissez-Faire
Capitalism Has Failed, Goodwill turns bad in Asia; Detroit's plan is no airbag.
We're moving into a far deeper hole. This stuff is too depressing. Hit the
delete key. Stop reading this crap. Turn off BubbleVision (CNBC).
The sun is shining.
I'm playing tennis today for the first time in nearly two weeks. My arm is
better, I think.
My
favorite Madoff story. The kid loses his job at a hedge fund job,
because his mother, who ran a feeder fund there, funneled $250 million to
Madoff. The kid says "there's an opportunity here." He gets Wilson
to private label some golf balls with this wonderful image. He sells them
on www.sleazeballs.net.
He gets mentioned
on CNBC's Squawk box. He gets orders from all over the country and Europe.
Yesterday he
tells me he's sold out of his first batch and is ordering more. Business is
booming.

The ball's benefits,
according to Sleazeballs, are:
# Maximum deception
allowed by the rules of golf
# High powered corporate speak provides
# maximum hypocrisy
# Optimum spin for maximum duplicity
# Two-faced pretension
# Sham cover
# Guaranteed cutthroat action

This column is about my personal search for the perfect
investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered
with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor.
I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three
reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column
is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect
Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas,
concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address
is . You can't
click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from
software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role
in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse, though some
look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please
note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay
Michael's business school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense,
click
here and here.
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