Thursday, October 9, 1997
The Gardner Gambit
by Douglas C. Rapier
([email protected])
Boy, those Gardners are slick.
It took me awhile to catch on to their angle with this "Invest Foolishly" thing. I mean, successful investment advisors giving away their secrets? Come on! Tell me another one. Hey, I might be new to investing but I've been around the paddock enough times to know that there is no such thing as a free hay-ride. But, for the life of me I couldn't find the hook.
So, I just kept visiting their web site and reading their investment Foolery in the 13 Steps, the Fool's School and the Foolish Workshop. I bought their book and it turned out to be a very enjoyable read. I even started investing using their approach and am doing pretty well.
I almost chalked up my original cynicism as a sign that I was way too world weary to recognize true beneficence when I finally came face to face with it. I settled into enjoying the puns and the light-hearted David and Tom-Foolery. I was a Fool in a Fool's paradise.
Then, as I was reading the scathing reports on the Motley Fool about Wade 'Hip-Boots' Cook, it hit me like the back-load on a mutual fund: Fooldom was all just a deviously clever scam.
Here's the way I figure it: the Gardners are no dopes. They want the big bucks just like everybody, Wade 'Made in the Shade' Cook included. But what dooms most of the hucksters in the financials game is playing the "penny-ante, quick-score-and-blow-town" con. The small timers have their hand out from the git-go with their tip-sheets, exclusive client bulletins and seminars; they're hard not to spot. Grasping nickels and dimes on their way out the door two steps ahead of the SEC investigators.
But these Gardner boys, they're a new breed. For free, they're going to assist us in amassing collective fortunes with their Foolishness first. Then they'll do the old Flimflam on us all and make their big score after all their marketing tools are well in place. That's why they're so keen on denigrating Wade 'in de water' Cook. He's tipping their hand!
Don't you get it? They're not content with the small change; they want to bilk us after they've helped make us all millionaires! Then it's off to Barbados or wherever with their funny hats.
Insidious, ain't it?
Well, I'm on to them. And when I catch up to them in their cabana on the beach, I'll thank them personally for taking me for a Fool.
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