But I will venture to guess that Mr. Buffet’s wife got a peek at his February TD Ameritrade (AMTD) or Schwab (SCHW) brokerage statement and had some harsh words for Mr. Buffet. When she saw that GE and JPM have both dropped a chunk lately, the rolling pin probably came out of the kitchen drawer. I hope he didn’t invest with his wife’s IRA money.
 
Whatever Warren thought he knew that we didn’t know about the stock market just didn’t work this time around. Who is to say he is any smarter than the rest of us? Maybe he has just been real lucky for a long time.

Sometimes what is known as book learning or even decades of experience just won’t help you that much. It’s your uncommon knowledge that can make the real difference in the way to invest, live, and who gets the daily job of taking out the trash at your house.

In a tough economy, could this shirt
 be a best seller?

Candidate #1: Trophy Wife Hall of Fame
Political Spouses Category

It all seemed so simple, but how many real smart people have taken some big losses in the market? People like Steven Spielberg, Jeffry Katzenberg, Kevin Bacon, Jerome Fisher, Mort Zuckerman, and Eliot Spitzer. All seem real smart. If you Google (GOOG) any of these people you will see what I mean. These are the rich, famous, captains of the industry, and at least one was caught with his pants down in the wrong place.  But each of these smart people was not smart enough to avoid being ripped off for millions of dollars by Bernard Madoff. 

Even Tufts University, Yeshiva University, and New York University lost money in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi game show.

So maybe the real edge is to think differently. Use uncommon knowledge.

How many people can make a killing in the market by buying the same stock everyone else is buying when it looks like a momentum play? Most of us get on that train and get off when the stock has taken a plunge.

Candidate #2:
Trophy Wife Hall of Fame - Brunette Category

Candidate #3:
Trophy Wife Hall of Fame – Trying too hard to dress like her husband category

To find some clues for what the magic of uncommon knowledge might be, how people get it, and what you could do with it,  I tried to identify one group of people who seem to be using uncommon knowledge to get ahead in the world.  By getting ahead in the world, I mean living in the lap up luxury with very little if any real work. Face it; if you have uncommon knowledge you should use it. Why work hard?

First, I thought people who were filthy – buy your groceries at Tiffany’s (TIF) - rich would be the obvious answer. But it turns out that most of the super rich people alive today actually inherited their wealth from somebody else who worked real hard. So that wasn’t the answer.

I ran an informal poll in the 7-Eleven checkout line while we were waiting for the two cashiers to figure out if it was okay for someone to buy a carton of Marlboros – a product of Phillip Morris (MO), a bunch of carrots, and a muffin with food stamps. I found out that you could buy practically anything at this 7-Eleven with food stamps, as long as you also bought a lottery ticket. I also learned that taking a poll in a 7-Eleven line is probably not a good idea.

She thought for about four seconds. I was not used to the absolute quiet in the phone line and started to worry that something had happened to her, then she said she definitely knew a group of people with heaps of uncommon knowledge…trophy wives.

How could she have been more right?

Trophy wives… They don’t work, they live in the lap of luxury, and when their much-older husbands die off, they can either become a trophy wife again if they are under thirty, and most of them are, or get a trophy husband so they have someone to live out the rest of their days with. 

If that isn’t uncommon knowledge, I don’t know what is. These mostly blonde bombshells have an uncanny knack for what it takes to get ahead in the world.

In less than a year my daughter will start applying to colleges. She’s not blonde right now, but I wonder if there is a Trophy Wife University.
I would settle for a Trophy Wife Community College. Maybe I can save some money on tuition. I must have some of my mother’s uncommon knowledge.

The Trophy Wife Hall Of Fame Trophy