Money, Money, Money

Talk about con games, the stock market is the biggest one there is, a great, bloated whale. My great-grandfather had the right idea. His pal Isodor Strauss came to him one day and said he was going to buy a store that was failing and would my relative invest? My great-grandfather said no thanks, but he'd be happy to lend him some money, which he did. He got every penny paid back. The store was Macy's. I directed a film financed by a man who published a weekly stock market newsletter. I asked him once jokingly how his progostications had turned out the previous week. He answered he'd been doing it so long it didn't matter what he wrote, he knew how to hedge his advice so it would always seem right. Like the time a TV sportscaster was asked his prediction for the UCLA-USC game. "USC is definitely the stronger team," he said, "so I'm picking UCLA to upset." Brilliant. You can't lose.