The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

But let's say Quattrone exits his current mess cleared of all charges. We figure Schick could launch a series of ads starring celebrities who have gotten in and out of trouble -- something akin to the campaign that No Excuses jeans used to run featuring Donna Rice Hughes.

We can picture Frank in the ad right now, smiling at the camera while some blonde caresses his face. "The closest shave of my life," says Quattrone, his eyes a-twinkle. "Well, almost."

We called up Quattrone's people to gauge his interest in the cutting edge of advertising. A spokesman called our proposal "too silly to deal with."

2. There's No Tech Like Nanotech

Speaking of too silly to deal with, nanotechnology reared its ugly head again this week.

Yes, nanotech -- the science of itty-bitty things.

As we pointed out a few weeks ago, Steve Forbes and his associates are making bizarre claims on nanotechnology's behalf as part of their pitch for a new investment newsletter focusing on nanotech.

We figure Forbes is on a mission to help people pour their money down the nanotech toilet, just in case they haven't already lost enough money investing in the Internet and in fiber optics (another pet project of Forbes').

Now to everyone who wrote to us after we made fun of nanotech the last time around, let's clarify one thing. We aren't antitechnology here. (Heck, we're a research lab, for gosh sakes.) We're sure people are doing cool things in the lab with molecular-level stuff, and we're sure that it will translate into innovative products in a few years, like five-bladed razors that won't set off a metal detector.

But why do nanotech's boosters insist on sounding like the people Warren Buffett warned you about? Just as with email ads for weight-loss products, we figure that the grander the claim, the smaller the return on our investment. When we hear Forbes say nanotech will reduce the Library of Congress to the size of a sugar cube, we lock up our wallets.