The curious lack of a perpetrator in the anthrax mailings — mailed exclusively to Democratic senators in powerful positions — is in some ways even more alarming than the fact that the same administration also managed not to catch Osama bin Laden. At least we know who he is and approximately what his motives are.
But why would an unknown quantity try to murder two Democratic senators? Would it be because of their strategic importance to the Judiciary Committee and the nomination process during an administration expected to name multiple nominees to the Supreme Court?
John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee, is like many Americans in at least one respect: His investments aren't diversified enough to reduce risk and boost returns.
Roberts, in response to a Senate Judiciary Committee request, disclosed his finances in early August. His investments as of Aug. 1 included $1.6 million in stocks, $1.7 million in mutual funds and $1.4 million in cash.
Using the "X-Ray" portfolio-screening tool from investment-research firm Morningstar Inc.'s Principia database, MarketWatch analyzed Roberts' stocks and funds, and a combination of the top 50 holdings.
Several financial advisers were then asked about the results. They didn't know at first who they were judging, only that the subject was a 50-year-old father of two, with a house in an upper-class suburb and a professional career.
Their unanimous verdict: Roberts is overly concentrated in specific stocks, owns too many mutual funds and hasn't spread his wealth across different investment categories.
Plus, he has a lot of idle cash, no bonds and little international exposure.
"It's a very unbalanced portfolio," said Kevin Ellman of Wealth Preservation Solutions in Ridgewood, N.J. "It's a typical thing where people put together a high number of investments and they confuse that with diversification."
[...]
"The allocation doesn't make a lot of sense," said Roy Diliberto of RTD Financial Advisors in Philadelphia. "I certainly wouldn't have all that money concentrated in five stocks, all of which are very similar in nature and are going to plummet or rise at the same time."
The crucial importance of diversification — the most basic lesson in investing due to the hazards of overconcentration — also applies to the Supreme Court itself. All Justices who are "very similar in nature" will certainly "plummet or rise at the same time."
The Supreme Court is the American portfolio of justice. If we load it up with several ethnicities and genders but just one ideology, we are confusing superficial variety with true diversification of opinion.
This is the very essence of why neither party should pack the courts.
The Wall Street Journal's Question of the Day poll ("What do you think of the prison sentences given to former Tyco executives Kozlowski and Swartz?") was answered with Too Harsh 12%, Too Lenient 42%, and Just Right 45% as of this writing. The Journal's opinion page said, "...the outcome strikes us as just. Not because of their greed -- there's no law against lavish living yet -- but because of their crimes." The implied but unspoken fear is that such harsh treatment of American executives could eventually extend to other useless, parasitic devotees of lavish living: the ruling class of American media.
To any objective observer, it's obvious that the Tyco verdicts were not nearly harsh enough. Kozlowski was sentenced to a minimum of 8-1/3 years. The relative harshness or leniency can be determined by a simple comparison with other nonviolent crimes — take marijuana, for example. Though marijuana possession sentences vary widely by state, even today the average sentence for just having (not selling) marijuana in a state like Alabama is 8.4 years.
Let's review:
Victimless crime: 8.4 years Stealing $575 million: 8.3 years
Using marijuana possession with its number of affected parties (one) as the basic unit of sentencing, shouldn't Kozlowski's crime with its number of affected parties (thousands, at least) mandate a sentence of at least 8,300 years?
