Hookers should watch CNBC

Wall Street is gleefully smiling ear-to-ear this week as news that New York governor Elliot Spitzer was found to be involved in a prostitution ring and, after failing to plea-bargain and weasel his way out of it, was forced to resign today. Before being governor for the past year, Spitzer made his reputation as being the "Sheriff on Wall Street" under his previous role as Attorney General and destroyed a lot of reputations and made a lot of enemies along the way.

What surprises me the most is not how stupid Spitzer was. Sad as it is that's just human nature. The surprising thing is that it was only within the past year that the hookers started recognizing him as the, then, governor of New York.

Back in his prosecuting days he was all over the financial press and TV shows. CNBC used to interrupt their programming and show his press conferences live as he announced who he was going to "bring to justice" next, most of whom never got to trial to defend theirselves by the way.

I think that if a hooker recognized him in those days and shopped some evidence around to the right folks she could have easily walked away with $1 million in cash and very possibly several million, maybe $5 to $10, in a foreign account -- just for some recorded phone calls, some text messages, and, for the $5+ million payday, maybe some video from a hidden camera. I'm not saying this would have been a Christian thing to do, but it could have been done.

Spitzer destroyed a lot of people. Dick Grasso alone lost $100 million directly because of Spitzer. I don't know who would have paid up, or if a few of them would have went in together, but I can almost guarantee a deal would have been made and the "purchasers" of the merchandise would have saved themselves many millions after the immediate downfall of Spitzer. Even a $10 million payday would not have been out of the question. Several of the people affected by him in those days were on the Forbes billionaires list. We're talking homes and condos around the world with private jets in between. Moving several million into a foreign account and discreetly flying someone out of the country with advice not to come back into the U.S. for two or three years would not have been a stretch for these people.

So, point being, if you are a hooker, watch CNBC.

(However, to be completely honest I must say that I've watched CNBC and its predecessor FNN, the Financial News Network, for a very long time, 18+ years I guess (not to imply that I'm a hooker or anything), and I must say that 99.99% of everything they say is complete, total rubbish. However, their advice and the advice of their talking head parade is a very good contrary indicator for investing.)