If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $16.00.
With Enron, you would have $12.50 of the original $1,000.00 invested a year before bankruptcy.
With WorldCom, you would have less than $4.00 left.
If you invested $1000.00 with Bernie Madoff you would have $0
If you had bought $1,000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $215.00.
Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.