Daily Newspapers Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- If you want to know how daily newspapers can be hazardous to your investing health, check out the recent Washington Post feature on Al Gore.

The story talks about how Gore made a fortune investing in alternative energy companies. But it tells us precious little about how the companies did.

The editors at the Washington Post were apparently not aware of the two requirements that business reporters should meet: One, they should have taken Business 101. And two, they should have passed it.

The Post started off with a reference to a 2008 lecture from Gore featuring several alternative energy companies, and how several have done well, albeit with billions in federal subsidies.

Give The Post half a point for trying.

But most of the companies Gore mentioned in the 2008 presentation The Post talked about have tanked, as have investments in alternative energy his company referred to in subsequent promotional material -- some marked Personal and Confidential.

Amyris (AMRS), an ethanol stock for example, is featured prominently in the 2008 video. The stock has gone from $33 per share down to $2 since last year. That is a loss of 93%.

And last week, in TheStreet, I wrote about the results of some other Gore investments. Equally dismal. That is why almost two years ago, I told my newsletter readers and clients to "Short everything under the sun."

Alternative energy in all its forms is a terrible investment. But you would not know it from The Washington Post.

Wind, solar, bio-fuel, electric cars: You name it, the stock prices are plunging.

Data from Best Stocks Now App

The Post also does not talk about some of the larger clients of Gore's investment company: Public employee pension funds in California and New York. Both funds controlled by Democrat-appointed politicos.

Nor does The Post report Gore's company, Generation Investment made over $30 million from the New York funds alone since 2009.

Jimmy Hoffa's greatest contribution to the world of organized crime is that he was the first to figure out big pension funds were easy pickings for him and his confederates. Hoffa went to jail for it. Gore figured out the same thing and got the Nobel Prize.

1 2 Next › Last »