For the purposes of this examination, let's set aside the fact that you can find reliable clinical research that shows that tobacco smokers cost the insurance industry less over their lifetimes than svelte nonsmokers do. This is simply due to the fact that we tend to die sooner. But that's a matter of insurance industry/government/pharmaceutical hijinx, to possibly discuss another time.

That aside, the item I'm bringing forward today is how the issue of lying smokers should be pursued by Whirlpool Corp.(NYSE: WHR). I'll not take issue against Whirlpool's insurance plan demanding a different level of premium payment from smokers. I'll not take issue against Whirlpool asking smokers to document their participation in the addiction. I'll not take issue against Whirlpool taking action against smokers who lied when claiming that they don't smoke. What I do argue against is the ludicrous notion that Whirlpool employees have turned on one another. It appears that's what the company expects us to believe.

Whirlpool management wants you to believe that they had 39 instances of one employee reporting another for serving their nicotine addiction in violation of what should be a confidential declaration of status. Whirlpool expects you to believe that these company "rats" know which smokers lied on their paper work and which didn't. Whirlpool expects you to believe that all policy violators are of hourly status and that violations by management staff either don't exist or aren't yet worth pursuing. Whirlpool expects us to believe that the company itself wasn't at the root of this all.

How shall Whirlpool handle its lying smoker issue? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Today's funeral of Ken Lay puts to rest his physical presence. Where his soul will end up has been commented on many times and there does not seem to be any controversy. The fact that his family wanted to cremate his body (beating Satan to the punch or hiding the evidence?) is ironic in the sense that when he was alive his company (and my company too), crashed and burned from a financial height that I do not believe has been achieved before in such a short period of time.

The pain of his (and Fastow's, Skilling's and others) financially and morally corrupt adventures spread far and wide affecting a very broad swath of the nation and will be reviewed for decades in business schools, board rooms, Federal Commissions and more.

I crashed with the rest of the shareholders, workers, lenders and affiliated companies. To me the amazing thing is that in one day I made the best sell decision of my investing career and the worst buy. When Cisco Systems hit an all time high of $82 and was the highest "valued" company in the world at a capitalization of $450 billion, some idiot analyst prognosticated that it would be the first trillion dollar company. At the time Cisco was touting 50% annual growth for years out and my alarm bells began flashing. I decided it was time to abandon ship. I sold.

So what did I do with the money from the sale? I decided it would be a good idea to diversify more and moved the money from Internet/tech to energy. The sector was lagging at the time and I thought it might be ready for a rebound.

Continue reading Enron and Ken Lay ended with a crash and I was along for the ride

Enron and Ken Lay ended with a crash and I was along for the ride originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.