Saturday, September 6, 2008

Weekend edition: A call for the beauty disadvantaged

Mt Isa is a mining town in remote North West Queensland Australia. Its hot and dry and (kindly) a cultural backwater. It also has a severe drought of ladies and the children suffer from lead poisoning. The ratio of single blokes to single ladies exceeds 5 to 1. If you took out the hookers it would probably be much worse.


The mayor in the tradition of small town mayors took it upon himself to rectify this situation with a call for the “beauty disadvantaged” to move to Mt Isa. You know what he thinks of his constituents when he says this:


Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face. Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness.


Whatever – beauty is skin deep and sometimes the ugly ducklings can thrive in a portfolio. So – at least as regards to stocks – consider this a call for the beauty disadvantaged. Interesting suggestions will be examined.


The only problem of course is an observation that a single nurse in Mt Isa made regarding the Mayor’s comments. She said: “around here the odds are good, unfortunately often the goods are odd”.


I expect that to apply in most instances to the stocks too!

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