The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

Nails on a Blackboard Evelyn speaks. And speaks. And speaks

4. The Devil in Evelyn

We also have a few words for legendary pain-in-the-neck shareholder Evelyn Y. Davis, who has made a career out of irritating everyone with the sound of her dental drill voice. Unfortunately for us here at the Research Lab, we were among those treated to Davis' impromptu root canal.

Evey, don't go away mad. Just go away.

Now, many years ago, Evelyn used to be funny and actually provided a good dig at many a mighty CEO. Evelyn once called Henry Ford "Hank" at one of the automaker's shareholder meetings. But the days of Evelyn being entertaining appear to us to be long past. (Sorry, Evey.)

The trouble with Evelyn this time around was that with so many Disney shareholders dying to speak at the meeting -- and with Disney granting so little time for questions and comments -- Davis quickly overstayed her welcome.

At least Davis was funnier than Eisner (though that wasn't all that hard). Addressed by a well-meaning PricewaterhouseCoopers auditor as "Ms. Davis," she shot back, "Mrs. Davis! I've had three husbands!"

5. Money to Bernie

Finally, with this week's indictment of former WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers on securities fraud charges, we can't help but wonder: Is that all there is?

Usually, prosecutors load up the indictment with all sorts of juicy allegations to stir outrage and supply vivid anecdotes of misdeeds that rile the common man. There's nothing like an exec who pays several thousand dollars for an umbrella stand to make a dedicated Kmart shopper's blood boil.

But the only smoking gun in the whole document for Bernie -- the only thing linking him to a 32-page securities fraud charge -- is an ambiguous voice-mail message left for Bernie by co-conspirator Scott Sullivan. It's not even clear if Ebbers even listened to the message.

So now the question is, is there any hard evidence linking Ebbers to WorldCom's multibillion-dollar accounting fraud. And if there isn't, why?

Innocence is one possible reason. But there's also Bernie's legendary aversion to technology such as cell phones, the Internet and pagers -- ironically, technology marketed by WorldCom to executives who want to stay in touch. Was he a big-picture guy, too busy to use the tools of the communications trade? Or did he just want to keep his distance to keep an air of plausible deniability when bad news occurred?

Well, one thing's for sure. We'll find out at his trial.