Crappy companies these days seem to have a surefire way to get back on the road to riches. Go bankrupt!

Evidently, Kmart wasn't the only company that could execute this wonderfully successful strategy. Now MCI, the company formerly known as Worldcom, is out of bankruptcy court and it's stock is flying. Granted, shares of MCIP did get crushed right after emerging from the dead, but if investors timed their purchase well they could have made a nice chunk of change. The stock has doubled from its lows and now sits at post-fraud high of 26.

Contrasting the Kmart and MCI stories is very interesting, to me at least. Eddie Lampert and his hedge fund, ESL Investments, was able to buy half the company on the cheap when nobody else wanted it while it was in bankruptcy. I probably don't have to tell you, but he has made 900% in two years as the stock has soared from 15 to 150.

It turns out that even though MCI was in the very same situation after their massive accounting fraud was uncovered, nobody swept in to take control of MCI. If they had, they would have gotten a relative bargain. Now we have Verizon and Qwest in a bidding war that is sending MCI stock to new highs.

Why weren't these companies interested a year and a half ago? All of the sudden they are now and as a result will have to pay the price for such a boneheaded mistake. In any case, I highly doubt there is anywhere near the value in MCI that there was in Kmart.