The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

And it hasn't turned out to be a "full tour," either. Following two no-shows that raised questions -- more precisely, revived questions -- about Axl's ability to focus on the task at hand, plus a few concert cancellations, Clear Channel this week called off the rest of the tour, giving no explanation.

Axl, rock star that he is, was aware from the start that his reputation for dependability ranks somewhere below Amtrak's. He was quoted in September as saying, "This is a collection of performances I've agreed to. That I have personally authorized, not someone else's good intentions gone awry or a reckless promoter's personal agenda. These shows are important to us, and for better or worse we'll be there."

You know, record companies are always complaining about how online file-swapping will kill the music business. Maybe it will, but maybe a few select musicians will do it first.

5. Initia Public Offering

Like a lot of other childish people this week, we snickered when we read the news that a brothel in Melbourne, Australia, was moving closer to getting traded on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Then we got down to business.

See, anyone can tell you you shouldn't invest in a house of prostitution. But only the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab can tell you why.

First off, if you buy into Daily Planet's IPO, you're not buying into the prostitution business. You're buying into the business of being the prostitution business's landlord. Specifically, you're buying a building owned by a guy named John Trimble, who collects rent from a company owned by John Trimble, which operates a brothel owned by John Trimble.

Second, prostitution has never quite worked out as a publicly traded business. For that insight, we went to an expert: George Flint, government relations representative of the Nevada Brothel Owners Association and a longtime representative of the legalized prostitution trade group.

No Nevada brothel has ever gone public, says Flint, though one came close more than a decade ago. In theory, there should be no problem, he says. "Most people are unaware that a large brothel operates very similarly to any large or medium resort," he says. "It's a restaurant. It's a bar. It's a hotel. It has all of the levels of management that any $10, $20, $30 million business would have."

And yet, he says, people refuse to believe that brothels are run with any sort of business sophistication. They also can't handle the stigma of letting friends or family know they've invested in one.

"Everybody wants to invest, and everybody gets excited about the concept," Flint says. "But when push comes to shove ... nobody really gets their checkbook out."

Ah, yes. For a lot of us, investing in sex is just like sex itself: We're all talk and no action.

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