Professor Seth E. Lipner has a regular column in Forbes called “Intelligent Investing” that is always a worthwhile and interesting read. His column titled “Don’t Count On The Government To Save You From The Sharks” is a good example. The subject is a group of structured products known as reverse convertibles. Reverse convertibles are complex structured products with embedded options linked to a “reference asset” like a stock or index. If the price of the reference asset falls below a predetermined level, at maturity, a “put” option kicks in and the investor receives the depressed asset instead of his principal. Investors usually don’t know when that happens because it has not been explained to them. That would be bad for sales.