The Navajo Investment Club

A Boston firm couldn't get the Navajos to invest when he pitched investing as a strategy for the future. But when investing was pitched as a way to help our neighbors, these Southwest Native Americans got busy

A blue-chip investment firm flailed and flopped recently when it flew a suit from the high-rise canyons of Boston to the mesas of the Navajo nation to explain to a group of Arizona Navajos why they should invest for old age.

Hoping to hook the 95 Navajos gathered, he started by asking how many had heard of Willard Scott. None had. The representative explained that Willard Scott was the former weatherman of the Today Show who often featured 100-year-olds on their birthdays.

"You know what?" the rep queried. "More people are living to be a hundred."

No one reacted. On the reservation, people die younger than the general population. The pitch didn't even cross the plate.

Undaunted, he persevered by telling them about health consciousness and New Year's resolutions to lose weight.

Again, blank stares. The Navajos don't make New Year's resolutions, don't have health clubs and aren't obsessed about weight.

And so it went. What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Clearly...