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Wednesday, October 1, 2008
And The Hits Just Keep Coming
In earlier posts (the Clueless in the USA series), I discussed how Republicans 2008 have a way of being, well, you be the judge:
- Stealing. In an attempt to appeal to music-loving middle-aged American voters, they use - without permission - copyrighted music. That is called, in polite circles, theft. So much for hiding behind 'law-abiding' and the 7
th Commandment - Stupidity. Either they steal somewhat blindly, or just don't understand: they repeatedly use (without permission) songs that convey a message opposite of what they think it conveys. Or, in their usual contempt for the American public, they think that we are the ones who are too stupid to notice
- Stubbornness. When confronted with demands to cease and desist using music without permission, they dig in their heels and refuse to stop... until the attorneys' letters start mentioning 'injunction.' Then they flip-flop and stop stealing ... until the next moronic GOPer gets a bright idea... and launches another activity that is illegal, futile, and just plain idiotic.
- Jackson Browne - Running On Empty
- John Mellencamp - Our Country and Pink Houses
- Heart - Barracuda
- Van Halen - Right Now
and the pinnacle, the dumbest of them all - Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
Labels: 7th commandment, barracuda, Born in the USA, flip-flop, Hagar, Halen, heart, Jackson Browne, mellencamp, moronic, Our Country, Pink Houses, republican, Right Now, Running On Empty, springsteen, theft
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Friday, September 19, 2008
R.I.P., Merrill Lynch (Pierce, Fenner, and Beane) NOT!!
Wall Street giant Merrill-Lynch - like many other Wall Street powerhouse firms - has self-destructed. When all the rumble has been completely picked over by scavengers, what will be left behind is a mountain of greed.
I don't mourn the passing of M-L. That firm screwed me big-time in the 90s. I have a tendency to forgive, and a reluctance to hold grudges, but the shameless white-collar theft those guys pulled is something I'll never forget. In part it's because I will have to live withthe consequences of their crimes.
In the 90s I worked for a company that had an excellent 401-K program for its employees. Up to a certain amount, the company MATCHED! employees' contribution to the plan. I contributed more than I could afford in order to maximize the benefits of the plan.
Merrill-Lynch administered the plan. That means that they collected and 'managed' the money sent in by employees and employer. Like any 401-K plan, employees could choose how to invest their money. However, the choices were limited to mutual funds owned and operated by Merrill-Lynch. Are you seeing the problem?
Always cautious, I split my initial investments between bonds, blue-chip funds, and growth funds. The economy caught fire soon after I enrolled in the plan, so I switched my money into mostly 'growth-oriented' mutual funds. Keep in mind that M-L owned and operated the funds, and we had no way of changing that.
No matter how well the economy did, and no matter how I moved money around trying to find a fund that didn't completely suck, my 401-K investments never really got ahead.
When I left the company and moved my retirement money out from M-L and into a self-directed Individual Retirement Account I finally got free of their theft. Consider this: in the 90s in the USA we enjoyed the longest continuous economic growth in our history. My investments were intended to help me maximize my connection to that economic growth. What did I have at the end of my M-L days? I had my contributions plus my employer's contributions plus a pittance in capital gains. In an economic period in which huge gains were there to be had, I got none of it. The S & P 500 market index went from 350 to 1200. Merrill-Lynch's lousy mutual funds sucked up my share of that phenomenal growth.
During that time, several employees complained to managment that we were getting screwed - not by our company, but by our company's choice of 401-K managers. Looking through the records of the market in general and the M-L funds in particular, ALL of M-L's investment media performed terribly. I could not have done significantly better, no which of M-L's offerings I chose.
No doubt, Merrill-Lynch's fund managers did extremely well for themselves. M-L as a whole certainly well during that time (DUH!)
While I would never put all of my investments into one company or one mutual fund, I sometimes think (somewhat wryly) that if I could have, I should have invested in Merrill-Lynch stock instead of the the S%^t investments they did make available.
M-L's clients (as I sadly was) and its current suckers (I mean investors) al lost huge sums. It's too bad that Merrill-Lynch's fund managers - and top managers - all walked away wealthy (and you know they did). Will I miss Merrill-Lynch? No! Not one iota.
Labels: 401-K, 401K, criminal, investment, lynch, merrill, mutual fund, theft, white-collar
Don't forget to visit BlackBox, the best of tech talk (in plain English), and please read/honor the legal stuff in the left-hand pane of this page
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