Win Ben Stein's Money

About a month ago on this blog, Negocios Loucos took author/television host/Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein to task for being, well, an idiot. His financial prognostications have been far from prescient.

Mr. Stein didn't have the cajones to respond directly to the W.C. Varones blog, but he did offer a spirited defense in the New York Times. I guess he is America's Most Smartest Financial Advisor, because he didn't fall for the Madoff pitch:

They assured me that this genius had found a way to spot market inefficiencies and, indeed, to make money off a perfect hedge.

I thanked them for their time and promptly looked up Bernard Madoff online. Nothing I saw was even a bit convincing that he had made a breakthrough in financial theory.

Okay, it's not much of a defense:

I politely passed and went on my way, finding my own inventive ways to lose money on a colossal scale during these last 15 months.