Circle of Competence

I don’t have anything substantive to say on the issue, but Einhorn’s vindication continues as Erin Callan has now been ousted as CFO of Lehman Brothers, downgraded to a lower position in the company. There is going to be some wild media coming out surrounding this issue in the coming days, I suspect, but needless to say all is not well at Lehman.

For the record, I don’t believe Lehman has Bear Stearns like prospects. They have some issues with disclosure and proper accounting, but they are raising capital at this point, and will probably avoid going kaputz. They needed to come clean long ago, but as they do it now the wounds will begin to heal. Whether or not their foray into this mess was of Callan’s doing, she helped perpetuate the lie that Lehman was okey-dokey, this myth that Lehman had somehow risen about the mess and wouldn’t be hit with billions of dollars in write-downs.

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On a more cheery note, yesterday we hit 100 Readers here at CoC, as measured by Feedburner. Adding another 3 today and we are at 103, after about 2 months of writing. I’m delighted that people have signed up for the feed, and I hope you’re all enjoying the content. Since we’ve started, I’ve gotten e-mails or comments from bloggers, money managers, individual investors, and readers.

I strongly encourage all of my readers to comment or e-mail me whenever you have thoughts or criticism. I’ve tried to keep the content varied between Superinvestors, specific company analyses, and mental models. The focus on media chicanery wasn’t my goal at the beginning, but the opportunities have arisen.

I’ve enjoyed the process immensely so far, and I hope I’ll be reporting again soon when we get a couple hundred more readers. Thanks to everyone who has been supportive so far. I

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Unless another opportunity arises, which it may, my next article will be an initiation of my thoughts on a specific restaurant and holding company called Western Sizzlin’ Corporation (WEST). Hopefully I’ll get that up over the weekend.