The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

Google Giddiness Seek and you shall find

Thank you, Google (GOOG Quote), for inspiring us.

Not to make money, of course, or to build a world-changing company from scratch, or to change how business is conducted on Wall Street.

No, thank you for inspiring us to forge linguistic frontiers as we describe the ruckus you've created over the past few weeks.

Hard to believe, but Google has tested both new highs and new lows in the market, even before going public.

Earlier this year, the search-engine company was the white-hot center of Wall Street's universe. Not since Dorothy went looking for the Wizard of Oz have so many people yearned to take a look behind the curtain.

So what happened in the past few weeks? Everyone turned on Google. And it's those folks who, today, are looking just a little less smart to us in the lab.

Sure, lots of folks called the Google deal overpriced -- and that was the nice part. Each day, it seemed, arrived with new bad or disquieting news about the company. A flattening search marketing business. SEC trouble, relating to a former job, for Google's general counsel. An SEC inquiry into options grants. Another SEC inquiry into an ill-timed Playboy interview. Grumbling about a two-tier stock structure. Grumbling about all the locked-up shares tumbling onto the market. Grumbling about nonexistent guidance. Grumbling about the company's apparent utter disregard for the investors it was theoretically courting. ...