The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. Brobeck, Can You Spare a Dime?

Sometimes a company's timing is better than perfect.

The latest proof of that particular theory arrived in our mailbox recently, in the form of a postcard addressed to the research lab's human resources director.

(Actually, he's known as our chief people officer, but that's another story.)

Sent by the legendary Silicon Valley law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, the mailing trumpeted the online availability of the firm's monthly newsletter Labor and Employment Update.

"Labor and Employment Issue Alert," read the postcard. "Find out how recent court decisions will impact your company in 2003."

Sounded promising. That is, until we visited Brobeck's Web site, where we encountered the following notice: "Brobeck is winding down its operations as a law firm. We expect that process to be substantially completed by the end of February."

In other words, recent court decisions will have precious little impact on Brobeck in 2003. They've got other labor and employment issues to worry about.

2. PowerBook to the People, No Delay!

For those of you who are interested in effective advertising strategies, we'll let you in on a little secret: If you want people to buy a Volkswagen, don't have the star of your commercial driving a Saab.

"Well, duh!" you must be thinking. "That's obvious."

Gateway to a PowerBook?

Maybe to you.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to someone at Gateway.

As the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab belatedly learned this week, a Gateway ad published last December featured a prominent picture of a fun-lovin', presumably music-downloadin' member of the youth culture groovin' with his PowerBook. Manufactured and marketed, of course, by Apple .

This reproduction of the ad has been circulating for a while, apparently. We found it on the Apple-centric site Spymac.com.

A Gateway spokesman acknowledges the goof, which she says ran only once, in PC Magazine, before it was caught. She attributes Apple's guest-starring role to injudicious use of a stock photo found in a library of ready-to-use photography. (For another example of stock-photo weirdness, look here.)