Don’t Tell Me You Wrote That Down

We are entering a strange new era, the ushering in of which is being accelerated by the indictments of those two poor bastards from Bear Stearns.

There is all kinds of irony here.

Anyone who spends time on an Internet forum or message board has seen that the English language, particularly spelling and grammar, is in decline. Emails are following text messages and IMs in becoming more and more informal. At the same time, the blogsphere allows anyone and everyone to be published and get their ideas and opinions out there at the drop of a few keystrokes – no editor required.

The Bear hedge fund managers are in hot water for saying privately that their funds were in trouble while at the same time assuring investors that all was well and even raising fresh capital. That is bad but not exactly my point.

My point is that while it is easier than ever for people to disseminate ideas in written form, some of the folks we’d most like to hear from are going to stop doing so. The risk is too great. Dealbreaker today is speculating the Jimmy Cayne, Bear’s former CEO, may be in the same jeopardy and his embattled fund managers.

If I were managing anything bigger than a picnic, I’d think twice about putting anything in writing that a lawyer didn’t look at first.