C.R.A.P. Report: Why Cormac McCarthy Is Still Good and General Electric Is Still Clueless
BECAUSE WE LIVE IN AN AGE when everything is a commodity and investing your mental energy in the wrong meme is a waste of time, each Monday, Esquire’s Cultural Resilience and Potential [C.R.A.P.] analytics team will sift through popular culture so you don’t have to. This week: Sweden discovers a new way to use its crap, Cormac McCarthy, and General Electric goes green.
Cormac McCarthy
Rating: Buy
Rationale: In the world of contemporary culture, Mr. McCarthy should be considered a stable, large-cap growth fund. Starting with his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, published in 1965, McCarthy has been turning out remarkable prose while remaining somewhat of a secret. In the past couple of years, however, his book No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and he was sainted by the Oprah book cult, elevating his name to an almost-household status. Currently, a screen version of The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, has just finished filming. Some analysts fear overexposure will lead to a devaluation, but the product, at its core, is of such high quality, those fears are unfounded. We’re lowering him to buy from strong buy because McCarthy’s no longer undervalued, but you’d be well served to invest in him despite that.
Previous ratings: 1985, Strong buy; 1992, Strong buy; 2005, Strong buy.
Swedish Poop Power
New Rating: Buy
Rationale: In addition to being blond and having great jawlines, it turns out the Swedes produce waste that can fuel cars. Dozens of municipalities in the country are now producing enough biogas (processed fecal waste sent to filling stations via gas pipelines) to fuel thousands of cars and buses. Despite Volvo’s discontinuation of production, as well as complaints of poor vehicle performance and an inadequate number of filling stations, many attractive Swedes remain optimistic. Should this product prove to be unsuccessful in the long term, it will continue to provide value through its novelty, and its attachment to the bigger issue of alternative energy, which we should all be invested in.
Previous rating: N/A
Corporate Environmentalism
Rating: Sell
Rationale: This week, General Electric promised to cut its global water use by 20 percent over five years, reducing it to about 1.8 billion gallons a year. The rest of the world collectively yawned. Of course, major corporations will always seek out pseudo-noble acts to be self-congratulatory about, but unless you work for one of these companies and are trying to argue its virtues, this information is both useless and annoying. In other news, General Electric stock is down 17 percent in the past five years, provoking the question, Does environmentalism increase when company value decreases?
Previous ratings: 2001, Sell; 2007, Sell.