Dumb & Dumber — Bold and Beautiful Financial Planners are Bad for Business

The first half of the year has wrapped up, and we’re still waiting for that recession.

Meantime, the dollar is strong, as I just discovered in Japan — nearly 150 yen to the greenback. Seeing the grandkids last week was (almost) a bargain!

Somebody just turned two.

That’s the good news. Now for the dumb stuff, and June certainly delivered.

— A submersible equipped with one button and a game controller imploded, killing five people. As of this writing, OceanGate Expeditions has not removed a page advertising two trips to the Titanic in 2024. “Wifi available.”

— It only took 80 years for people to realize that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association serves no purpose other than letting Ricky Gervais insult everyone and allowing foreigners to have dinner with Tom Hanks. The organization is officially kaput, and the Golden Globes will now be run by Dick Clark Productions.

— Crypto.com’s U.S. exchange is gone, and with it goes Matt Damon’s agent (I hope).

— Pickleball is the reason healthcare costs are going up, and it’s not because of hearing damage caused by America’s loudest sport.

— We learned that robotaxies are the future! The future of screwing with fire trucks.

— And we learned that sex toys are everywhere. Near Houston, police rushed to the scene of what they thought was a dead body in a trash bin. It turned out to be a dismembered sex doll wearing a pink bra. It’s incredibly creepy.

Then over in Florida, a guy on the lam got busted for allegedly stealing a pink vibrator from Target. (Target? Which aisle? Asking for a friend.)

Here, however, are the most fascinating foibles from the last month, mistakes we can all learn from. (Stop putting offensive comments in writing!)

DUMB: Musk + Zuck = Muck

Will they or won’t they? Oh, they will.

Elon Musk and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu champ Mark Zuckerberg have gone from sparring online to threatening actual fisticuffs in the Octa-nerd.

The battling billionaires are “dead serious” about a cage match, according to Dana White, UFC’s hypster-in-chief. White believes that throwing the two coders into the Octagon could be the most successful fight of all time, bringing in $1 billion.

Of course I’m gonna pay to watch.

That said, the only thing dumber than two influential CEOs — who lead two of the most valuable public companies — risking injury like some 21st century Hamilton-Burr takedown… is an NBA mascot expecting Conor McGregor to pull his punches.

DUMBER — Orgasmatron Matrons

Remember the orgasmatron from the hit comedy “Sleeper”? That was back when Woody Allen was funny. Before he was a father. And a husband. Father. Husband. Father. Husband.

“Sleeper” takes place in 2173. But we don’t need to wait another 150 years. In 2023, we have a sexual wellness company called OneTaste that built a business around freeing and healing women by having partners touch their private parts for extended periods of time as part of “orgasmic meditation.”

Crazy? Yes. But how refreshing! For once, a woman’s pleasure matters!

Until it (allegedly) didn't.

Problems within OneTaste started popping up in 2018, and soon there was a Bloomberg expose and a Netflix documentary. Now the feds are charging OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz with mistreating some women by forcing them to have sex with “current and prospective investors, clients, employees and beneficiaries…acts they found uncomfortable or repulsive as a requirement to obtain ‘freedom’ and ‘enlightenment.’”

So, to recap, a group founded to free women through their own sexual pleasure instead may have forced women to have sex for the pleasure of others. I knew it was too good to be true.

Daedone and Cherwitz also allegedly made members take on new credit card debt to pay exorbitant fees for classes. Many women also ended up working for OneTaste, and they claim they didn’t get paid.

The two defendants left OneTaste a few years ago and have pleaded not guilty. Current management says the case is rubbish (yes, OneTaste is still around!). “We are appalled by the outcome of what seems to be a long-term, misogynistic endeavor designed to tear down a feminine empowerment project and the women who built it,” the current CEO says on the company website.

Ladies, if you think prolonged orgasms can make you better, save yourself a lot of money and just go to Target (see above, I’ll let you know which aisle as soon as I find out). Also, if you’re looking for healing, a nice bath works wonders.

DUMBERER — Grumbling at Goldman

All is not golden at Goldman Sachs. The Wall Street Journal says that many of the firm’s partners are unhappy with CEO David Solomon (there are 420 partners, an interesting number).

Anyone ever open a Marcus checking account? Me neither. Marcus was the firm’s big foray into retail banking, and Solomon embraced it. It’s failed, resulting in big losses. That affects bonuses.

In addition, some partners are reportedly peeved that the CEO likes to jet around to gigs where he steps into his alter ego, DJ D-Sol. I’m not making that up. Solomon moonlights as a DJ.

But the bottom line is the bottom line. Goldman shares this year have underperformed Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase (even as Jamie Dimon’s bank finds itself in the middle of a Jeffrey Epstein scandal).

Now the Federal Reserve and SEC are reportedly investigating Goldman’s interactions with Silicon Valley Bank. Also on D-Sol’s watch, the firm hasn’t always been a great place for women. Goldman shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements over gender bias, and Bloomberg reports that Adam Dell, a former partner at Goldman (and brother of billionaire Michael Dell), recently settled with a female subordinate after he accidentally sent her a “sexually explicit” video.

Even former CEO Lloyd Blankfein is now reportedly complaining about his successor, taking a page from Bob Iger, who complained about the guy who replaced him at Disney — leading to Iger’s return as CEO. Could Blankfein return to Goldman Sachs?

Maybe it’s time for DJ D-Sol to stop remixing Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” and start thinkin’ about tomorrow.

DUMBERERER — Lawyers Losing It

Always remember that in every law school class, someone finishes last. That person sometimes even passes the bar.

June’s legal lunacy includes the attorneys who used ChatGPT to provide precedents that didn’t exist, as well as the lawyer admonished by a judge for clogging up the courts with hundreds of “class action” lawsuits against food products — like suing over whether Walmart’s olive oil mayonnaise contains enough olive oil.

But nothing compares to the financial fallout from emails by two senior partners at the L.A. law firm of Lewis Brisbois.

John Barber and Jeff Ranen decided to leave the firm and start their own company. The Los Angeles Times says the two men also took some Lewis Brisbois colleagues with them. Like, 140 employees.

Soon, it was knives out.

According to the Times, Lewis Brisbois management ordered the public release of hundreds of the partners’ emails going back 15 years “in which Barber and Ranen used vile terms for women, Black people, Armenians, Persians, and gay men and traded in offensive stereotypes of Jews and Asians.”

That’s a pretty comprehensive list.

The Times describes some of the (alleged) email contents:

A Superior Court judge was called “Sugar T—s.” Multiple female lawyers were referred to as “c—.” The epithets “fag” and “faggot” were deployed as all-purpose insults. An Asian job applicant was denigrated for the supposed size of his genitalia. Ranen dismissed another job candidate with, “How about someone who’s not a Jew.”

How about you stop being such an ass.

There’s also this:

When a female lawyer asked for upgrades to the firm lactation room, Ranen forwarded it to a male colleague with speculation about her appearance after bearing two children. He then added, “She could be 200 pounds and acne scarred and after all this time I’d still f— her.”

Hey, come on now, he’s just complimenting her!

The emails also reportedly contained “gratuitous” uses of the n-word. As if there are non-gratuitous uses.

Barber and Ranen have now resigned from their new firm, which has renamed itself Daugherty Lordan and is touting that 60% of its attorneys are c… I mean, women.

It’s dumb enough that two bigoted knuckleheads put such thoughts into print (how many times do I have to tell you people to stop doing this?), but what’s more disturbing is that Lewis Brisbois only became upset with the emails after the two men left to set up a rival shop.

DUMBERERERER — Open Season for Thieves

Because my home state of California is Opposite-Land, it doesn’t come up with laws to reduce crime. The state legislature instead wants to create a paradise where criminals can feel safe at work.

You may recall that shoplifting in California has skyrocketed since thefts under $950 were reclassified as misdemeanors in 2014. Police are too busy to care because they’re dealing with a fentanyl crisis and the homeless.

Rather than toughen up shoplifting penalties, a bill making its way through the California legislature would ban employees at stores from interfering with thieves.

Here are the details of CA Senate Bill 553:

1. Require employers to maintain a Violent Incident Log of all violent incidents against employees including post-incident investigations and response;

2. Require all non-healthcare employers to provide active shooter training;

3. Require retail employers to provide shoplifter training;

4. Prohibit employers from maintaining policies that require rank-and-file, non-security personnel to confront suspected active shoplifters;

5. Include, as part of the existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP), an assessment of staffing levels as a cause for workplace violence incidents;

6. Requires employers to include an evaluation of environmental risk factors in their Workplace Violence Prevention Plan.

7. Allow an employee representative to be a petitioner for a workplace violence restraining order;  

8. Require employers to refer workers to wellness centers.

This is the most California thing you’ll ever read. It does everything except address the problem.

But despite how dangerous it’s become to get paid minimum wage to fold and display overpriced yoga pants — never knowing when someone’s gonna walk in and knock over your store — a brave soul still occasionally stands up for what is right.

Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear lanyards.

Two employees at a Lululemon in Georgia (er, not California) would not be silent as two robbers ripped off the place. Video shows what appears to be the workers telling the robbers to “get out” and “no no no.” The employees reportedly called police, and the suspects were later taken into custody.

And then…

Lululemon fired them.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy that we train our educators on around engaging during a theft,” Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald told CNBC. (Educators?) McDonald says the company puts its employee safety ahead of merchandise, and the two workers “knowingly broke the policy.”

But did they have to be fired? For speaking up during a criminal act? Maybe just give them a warning? Or send them off with a free pair of $130 yoga pants like the robbers got?

DUMBEST — Pretty Face, Dumb Money

Looks can be deceiving! Don’t be stupid, especially when it comes to your financial future.

A study out of the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance shows that investors tend to give money to better-looking financial managers, “even though their funds don’t perform as well.”

“We find that funds with facial unattractive managers outperform funds with attractive managers by over 2% per annum,” write the study’s authors, Chengyu Bai and Shiwen Tian.

For the record, I’m not sure Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger has ever been described as “dreamy.”

According to the study, one reason for the poor financial performance of Barbie and Ken may be that attractive people tend to take greater risks because they’ve gotten away with murder their entire lives. (Seriously, beautiful people are less likely to get arrested and convicted.)

So don’t fall for the flashy smile. Go for the financial planner with “a great personality.”

💰💰💰💰💰

DUMB… But Wonderful

Let’s end on a high note. Here are three short videos from June which made me laugh.

The first is a an oldie but goodie that recently surfaced on the interweb. An ingenious toddler figures out how to escape from his crib. Get this kid into Stanford ASAP.

Next, when Canadian golfer Nick Taylor won the Canadian Open, fellow Canadian golfer Adam Hadwin tried to help him celebrate. It didn’t go well.

But my favorite is this clip featuring Miami sports reporter Samantha Rivera. She was covering the Stanley Cup Finals when some idiot tried to crash her live shot. You have no idea how many times this happens, and I stand in awe of her quick reaction and instinctive skills. Brava!