Drew Faust

It seemed like the highest term of praise offered by the Harvard Management Company: a no-brainer. Professor Faust could toil forever in the chilly confines of the Harvard History Department or she could move into a big office in Massachusetts Hall and rake in what any academic would consider serious moolah. Job responsibilities? After the chaos of her predecessor's term, none to speak of other than to shut up and smile pretty when the alumni were around. So how was she to know that following suave Larry Summers as President of the Harvard Corporation meant she was in essence serving as the mayonnaise in the excrement sandwich Summers had left behind. How was she supposed to know what a credit default swap was? Hell, Larry clearly didn't know, or he wouldn't have blown a billion dollars on such financial toxic waste. And how was she supposed to know that the $1.8 billion in pocket change the University carried on its books as cash was in fact invested in illiquid highly leveraged hedge funds? With Summers off to do to the country what he had done to what was once the nation's richest university, poor Drew is left to cut undergraduate rations and hope that Bill Gates or someone will cough up a few billion to get her off the hook. With your contribution you can help Drew Faust manage a graceful exit from the wreckage – maybe she could become President of the Smithsonian and send the bills to the taxpayers. 

Newspaper readers

The dwindling band of old-timers who pay to receive a paper edition on their doorstep every morning are the best customers a newspaper publisher could have. So how do the geniuses who've run America's great news businesses into the weeds treat these valuable customers? You know the answer: like the schmucks they are. To get a portion of the content that any idiot reads on line for free, these poor fools now pay up to $700 a year. And each year they're paying more for less. Remember late editions? TV listings? Sunday magazines? Foreign correspondents? Forget 'em. As more and more subscribers either wise up or keel over, newspapers publishers wonder how to get more money for less news out of this dwindling band.  At this point they figure that their remaining subscribers must be brain-dead, so look for another round of price increases and cuts in the already-meager contents of their shrinking rags. The only thing more pitiful than a newspaper reader? You guessed it: Newspaper reporters.

Dubai's creditors

Lending money to oil-rich Arab sheiks in the middle of a real-estate boom? What could go wrong? Um, everything. First of all, who the hell would want to live in a s***hole where the summertime highs reach 120 degrees, with 100 percent humidity to boot? Second, just because all sheiks wear bedsheets, drink Johnny Walker Blue, and drive a different Mercedes every day of the week doesn't in fact mean that they're all rolling in oil. It turned out that the ones in Dubai were rolling in nothing more than bull**** and the money they conned out of credulous bankers. Now the bankers are being told by their creditors to go, um, pound sand until the sheiks are graciously pleased to pay back the billions they hired; in other words, never. Of course, the banks can always pursue their remedies in the Emirates civil justice system. Hint: under the Dubai Commercial Code,  attempting to enforce a credit agreement is punishable by beheading, so better look behind you before filing that writ. But there's good news: the Macklowes are willing to buy the bank loans at 40 cents on the dollar, as long as the banks lend them the money to do it. Our advice: take the deal.  

Red Sox Nation, your new home awaits

Red Sox fans

We saved the most pitiable of the clueless for last. Last year, over three million schmucks made their way through the checkpoints and into Fenway Park, the most expensive place in baseball for a family of four to take in a game. And that assumes that the family was able to buy the tickets for their face amount. Ha! At the scalpers' prices charged for tickets to any game not involving the Orioles, a day at the ballpark could easily approach four figures. And these marks actually believed it when newlywed John Henry and baseball genius Larry Lucchino promised the fans they'd get a bona-fide pennant contender every year. Is that what that collection of has-beens stirring the breeze at home plate in 2009 looked like to you? Last winter, Henry, Lucchino, and Epstein refused to fork over the dough to sign the free agents needed to make the team genuinely competitive, with the result that said free agents were signed by the South Bronx Boys and brought a World Championship to Fort Apache on the Harlem. Henry et al. told Red Sox Nation that in refusing to pay up for talent they were standing on principle. The principle? There's one, or more precisely three million, born every minute.