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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Walter Shapiro and Jodi Kantor

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from: Walter Shapiro

Going Day-Trader

Posted Monday, Aug. 2, 1999, at 4:43 PM ET

Dear Jodi,

A personal confession is in order after your vivid portrayal of your normal Breakfast Table routines aboard the F train. (I trust that you don't actually partake of food or beverage on the subway, since in Rudy Giuliani's New York that's a "quality of life" offense that makes you eligible for an all-expenses-paid night in the lockup on Rikers Island.) Jodi, while you were luxuriously riding to work in air-conditioned comfort aboard the subway, I was among the downtrodden scanning the papers in a steamy house on Martha's Vineyard. (At Conroy's Pharmacy in West Tisbury, I have a reputation as a wild-and-crazy big spender because I reserve seven papers a day--the New York Times, Daily News, and Post, the two Boston papers, plus the Journal and, of course, USA Today, where I hold a day job as a columnist.)

I haven't yet read the Washington Post coverage of Hillary's wagging tongue, though this evening I will be headed to D.C. in quest of the calming breezes of a window air conditioner. But I suspect that would-be Senator Clinton had been searching for a nurturing and safe interview in which to discuss the purported real reasons that she plays "Stand By Your Man." (Remember, Tina Brown wrote a gushy paean to Bill Clinton's "sex appeal" in The New Yorker.) I do find it telling that Hillary's latest theory about Bill's "abuse" as a child is the kind of psychological claptrap that gives liberalism a bad name. About the only mystery left is the psychological roots of the president's compulsion to lie under oath.

As for your bet that the actual Talk interview will prove a disappointment, it seems so self-evident that I will resist the offer of a free Talk subscription. After all, as we have learned from years of Clinton scandals, talk is cheap.

I too was fascinated by the Journal leader on Mark Barton's day trading. (Will "going day trader" replace the already dated "going postal" in our lexicon?) Since the Atlanta murders occurred mid- afternoon Thursday, today's paper was the Journal's first chance to weigh in with a comprehensive Barton piece. I loved the small authoritative details like Barton "hunched in silence over his usual cafeteria-lunch fare of a turkey burger and fries." (Writing for news magazines is where I learned the trick of detailing what was eaten during noteworthy meals. Back in the 1980s, there was an expression on Capitol Hill, "Get out your menus, here comes Newsweek.)

Jodi, I think you're a little hard on the Journal's offhanded admission that Barton's actions don't stem from day trading alone. He was, after all, a guy who had apparently already murdered his prior wife and family. The sentence in the Journal story that spoke volumes to me was the one that read: "About 1990, [Barton] started out focusing on no-load mutual funds he had selected by doing research in the Wall Street Journal." That, alas, is the odyssey that so many Americans have followed in the glitz-and-greed '90s--abandoning safe investments in the quest for instant riches.

What was sorely missing from the Journal recap was the aggressive stance that Massachusetts has taken in trying to regulate day trading. (USA Today stated today, "The state of Massachusetts has emerged as the industry's nemesis.") And my new hero, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, said in Sunday's Boston Globe, "If there's one thing this whole thing points out, it's that there is a dire need for regulators to clearly identify this [day trading] as a problem."

But it's only Monday, so it's early for us to right all the wrongs of a world gone mad. So with my fingers black with newsprint, this seems like the perfect moment to take a late-afternoon swim.

See you at breakfast tomorrow

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