Wall Street versus America versus my better judgement
A friend who’s been following this blog for the past few months paid me a striking compliment recently. She said I am “the anti-Gary Weiss.”
As she explained, that’s not to say I’m necessarily anti-Gary Weiss, but that where Gary is in all things the Yang, I am the Yin, thus maintaining balance in the universe.
When I asked her for an example, she pointed to our respective approaches to Amazon book reviews.
Where Gary has dedicated an enormous amount of energy toward inventing dozens of over-the-top raving reviews of his own books, I only review media I’ve legitimately purchased and consumed, and on the one occasion I’ve had to light-heartedly comment on something I had in fact written, I clearly disclosed that I was the author.
I suspect that is what left me so bothered by the accusation leveled by Gary’s minion-for-hire ScipioAfricanus that I had panned Gary’s book when, as he wrote, “the evidence seems to indicate that he has never even read the book.”
Evidence? What evidence might that be?
To put a fork in that entire line of (il)logic, I offered this visual restatement of my initial Amazon review (click to enlarge).
Upon further reflection, I remembered that if I’ve learned anything about Gary Weiss over the past year, it’s that his sketchy relationship with Truth always provides solid content for this blog. And so with that in mind, I decided to not just re-read, but to study Gary’s book and report to you, my loyal readers, anything exceptional I might find therein.
Consider this exception #1.
On page 33 (of the hardcover version), Weiss holds up the trading history of Genesis Intermedia (GENI) as indicative of the excesses of a stock promoter known as The Waaco Kid.
Unfortunately, a brief consultation with the truth reveals that the company in question was actually Genesis International Financial Services (GIFS).
Much like network hardware maker Cisco and foodservice product distributor Sysco.
.
After all, both try to make things get from one place to another. Cisco moves bits of data, while Sysco moves cases of Vegeline non-stick cooking spray. They are identical, for all practical purposes.
Oh man. Is it obvious I’m lingering here to avoid getting back to the book?