Sold to you!

Shareholders of beleaguered Best Buy (BBY) just got the gift of a lifetime, a $24-$26 bid from company founder Richard Schulze, and they should take the money.

While I would not doubt the 71-year-old founder's resolve or question the utter stupidity of giving Linens 'n Things -- oops, I meant Circuit City; sorry, I meant Radio Shack (RSH); darn it, let me get this right . . .  Best Buy -- billions to go private, I just want to say that this is about as stupid an idea as I have seen come down the pike for years.

You see, similar to the founding fathers, we hold these truths to be self-evident that some groups are indeed in secular decline -- e.g., newspapers, magazines and large electronic equipment showroom retailers.

While there could be some last-man-standing game going on -- meaning that there is always someone who needs something today with full sales tax and no delivery versus someone who can wait a couple of days for a lower price, no sales tax and home delivery through Amazon (AMZN) -- I don't want to invest in that business.

Schulze, I am sure, sees how much better Best Buy is than the other guys, knows that it still has a humongous amount of sales -- go compare Amazon's sales to Best Buy's; you won't believe how big Best Buy is -- that doesn't mean he can fix it up in a few years and then bring it public again, which is pretty much what the people he is borrowing the money from will demand.

Here's the good news for the market, though. The fact that he is confident enough to try to get this done, the fact that he can say with a straight face that he has bankers who want to help him, the fact that he does have founder's credibility and the fact that he is being taken seriously in the marketplace all tell me that perhaps this stock market is better than we think!