The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

4. Actually, We're Planning to Vote for 'Nun of the Above'

Speaking of nominations, Jonathan Lebed -- the overachiever who in 2000 became the first minor ever charged with securities fraud -- is back in the news.

Lebed, who paid $285,000 to settle allegations of stock manipulation, is running for public office in his hometown of Cedar Grove, N.J., reports Reuters. The 18-year-old wants to be on the five-member town council. The election is May 13.

Wow. That impresses us. See, the usual pattern is to be in politics first, then get involved with crooked stock deals. By reversing the order, Lebed once again demonstrates what a visionary he is.

5. Part of the World Puts Its Stock In Us, Anyway

But back to the NYSE's sage decisions -- this time, the NYSE's revocation, disclosed this week, of al-Jazeera's permission to broadcast live from the floor of the exchange.

Al-Jazeera, of course, is the Qatar-based Arabic-language satellite TV news channel -- the CNN of the Muslim Middle East, if you will -- which over the weekend incurred the wrath of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others, for broadcasting footage of U.S. solders killed in Iraq, as well as American prisoners of war held by Iraqis.

The official word from the NYSE is that al-Jazeera's exile has nothing to do with the Iraq broadcast. Rather, the exchange, faced with limited broadcasting facilities, decided to weed out media "that are not primarily focused on finance and business."

Of course, the only sentient humanoids who believe that are the same ones who think CEOs regularly resign to spend quality time with the kids.

Anyway, it's a Dumb idea. Al-Jazeera is an equal-opportunity offender, one that the West has praised as a scrappy, independent voice -- just the way we like our media.

But now, the NYSE -- the public face of the U.S. capital markets -- has quickly persuaded al-Jazeera's audience that the NYSE is just as much of a free press fan as the governments of Jordan, Kuwait, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Palestinians -- all of which have shut down bureaus of al-Jazeera's or otherwise hassled the channel in reaction to particular programming they've found offensive.

Yes, we are aware of the grief and anguish caused by the grisly closeups of soldiers' corpses, and by the mean-spirited POW interviews. (Al-Jazeera pulled its footage following a request by the U.S. government.) But such grief and anguish was inevitable, given the number of U.S. media outlets that subsequently transmitted plentiful stills, snippets, descriptions of and background information for the same footage.

And -- as Al-Jazeera's Washington correspondent reminded CNN's Aaron Brown earlier this week -- U.S. broadcasters have shown questionable taste, too. Ten years ago, CNN ran stomach-churning video of a dead American soldier dragged through the streets of Somalia. CNN, last we checked, was still broadcasting live from the floor of the NYSE.

Sadly enough, from an international relations standpoint, the NYSE's decision comes the same week that the unfettered American press is reporting on moneymaking opportunities for U.S. companies in a postwar Iraq -- the oil field cleanup contract won by Halliburton (HAL), Vice President Cheney's former domain, for example, and the flag-draped efforts of Rep. Darrell Issa, R., Calif., to win cell-phone business for Qualcomm (QCOM).

In this context, the NYSE's edict seems part of a crude plot to portray U.S. capitalists as another set of Middle Eastern potentates. The profit urge of American commerce recognizes no international boundaries, in this scenario. But to Wall Street, press freedom is a restricted export.

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