The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street

1. Deadwood Logic From the Dead Tree Press

Is Wall Street plugging its ears to the great prospects of newspapers? Keep in mind, the dead tree press has even longtime investors like Warren Buffett cracking wise that every time he goes to a funeral, he knows papers have lost a customer they won't replace.

Yet Mary Junck, Lee EnterprisesLEE chairman and president, claimed with smiling serenity this week, "There is a profound misunderstanding on Wall Street about the strengths and future of our business."

Do tell, Mary. I love newspapers. I get paid by them, after all. And I certainly know Wall Street has missed a lot in terms of new developments, so I'm prone to fall for even a shakily stated premise about unrecognized upside. So what's the bull's take on papers? Eyeballs.

Yes, folks, here we go again. Back to the future in terms of the intellectual rigor mortis that is the concept that where eyeballs go, so too one day will profits. Pennies a share emerge from the pupils!

"We are really not losing readers," Junck said about her company, which is suffering declining revenue and profits but attracting a raw count of customers who will check out the goods as long as they are free.

Wait, can't this be a network television model: free and fortified with advertising? No. With zero barriers to entry, it's worse than cable. More problematic: the free online readers are sapping the only thing that will sustain these companies long term: subscribers, who pay hundreds for the paper and are worth, proportionally, 10 times more to advertisers.

Lee'e CFO, taking a turn with a death grip on a failed justification for a higher stock price, spent time bragging about how his company's losses weren't as bad as some others. Gee, break out the bubbly. But don't let the cork hit you in the eye, that iris will be worth something to Lee someday.

Dumb-o-meter score: 91. Buffett's joke about being at funerals and thinking of newspaper readers brings up the side question: Where is that dude's mind when the priest is speaking? Have some respect, Warren.