Bernie Ebbers
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[quote=babbling looney]
P.S. You couldn’t give me enough money to
set foot in New York City. OK that was figurative…possibly I
could force myself for enough cash…but I swear, I wouldn’t enjoy
it.
Would you go to London? Tokyo? Paris? Hong Kong?
[quote=babbling looney]
If you have your entire net worth tied
up in a single stock–even if it’s where you work–you have to be
a moron. How bright does somebody have to be in order to know
that the stock market can go down?
Moron may be a bit harsh, but I have to agree here a bit; with the codicil that the broker who didn't educate his client about a stop loss order or diversifyiing assets has been remiss in his duties. Individuals who, on their own, left huge amounts of assets in any one company, may not be morons, but certainly can be classifed as stupid, lazy and greedy.
[/quote]As is so typical it's the harshness of my intentionally chosen words that ring people's chimes.
"They're not morons, they're merely stupid, lazy and greedy."
At what point does somebody cross over from being stupid to being a moron? Is "fool" too gentle, but moron too tough? How about "cretin"--is that reserved for some plodding giant with a dulll stare?
Let's take Mr. and Mrs. Jones, who in 1999 were sitting on $1 million in WorldCom market value. Within a year or two--I don't have the dates engraved on my eyelids--that $1 million was gone.
Some evil stock broker did not get it, Bernie Ebbers did not even get it--it was just gone.
There are lots of things that Mr. and Mrs. Jones could have done--diversify, but puts, write calls, place stop orders, gift to their church.
In the Jones family there was probably one of them who was calling the shots regarding the $1 million--trust me there are days when they wander aimlessly muttering to themselves, "I'm a phucking moron."
Agreeing with them is perfectly acceptable. Part of what is wrong with this society is the frenzy to be "sensitive." Don't call somebody a moron when all they are is world class stupid is a prime example of nonsense.
[quote=babbling looney]
What is also ridiculous is the idea
that there is anybody in this country who was denied a college
education due to lack of funding. Most of the greatest
generation were in the service and were eligible for the GI Bill–as
has every veteran since.
Among younger people–since the draft
lottery–there has been an abundance of student loans and
scholarships. It’s apolgizing again to believe that those who do
not have college educations don’t have them because they couldn’t
afford them.
I agree that almost (notice I said almost) anyone who has the drive and determination to succeed can find the money, and the counseling to obtain the money, to get a good college education. However, I differ here from Put in that I don't think a degree is the "be all, end all" of success. I know many, very successful entrepenuers, who are not blessed with a degree. It is the drive, determination and native wit that make them a success.
[/quote]You've already told the assembled that you do not have a degree--so I suggest your point of view carries a huge degree of prejudice.
Regardless--would you advise your own son or daughter to finish school?
Do you believe that your clients believe that you have a degree?
Do you believe that no job can take on the legitimate status of a profession without an education requirement component? Several weeks ago you said that you thought there should be a specific course of study, like there is for accounting and law, and I don't disagree with that. There is to a degree--analysts, for example, get degrees that are industry specific.
The fact is that this is a sales job. But it is big league sales and as such it should have big league requirements. My best friend sells huge phone systems--thousands of extensions, data and voice simultaneously, really technical stuff. Over the years I have heard him tell several people who were asking on behalf of themselves or a child, "No, the firm will not even consider a resume submitted by somebody without a college education."
Why should Wall Street be different than a phone vendor--we're selling a hell of a lot more than an agreement to deliver a check if the buyer wrecks their car, gets sick, or dies.
With full knowledge of how harsh it is--you should not have been allowed to become a registered representative. We don't know each other from Adam, but from what I read you are bright and professional so Wall Street would have missed a good one had you been denied.
But in bending the rules to allow somebody like you in we also end up with the several morons who will read this.
Some will silently seeth but there will be others who will actually put fingers to keys and post some sort of "Stop talking about me!"
The soul who was referring to me as a retard is a perfect example. A stupid little boy--uneducated and unrefined--who has not business being offered a job in this industry.
I am anything but retarded, anybody who reads what I have to say knows it, but when you have the IQ of a sparrow and the vocabulary of a ten year old it's all you can come up with.
It's scary to think that he'll spend his day trying to get people to take his advice on what to do with their retirement dollars. Damn scary.
[quote=dashampersand]
Put:
This afternoon after I wrote my original post, I had a man come to my office to do some business. He is 48 years old and a factory worker. He is not college educated and works a line job 55 hours a week. He plans to work until he is at least 70. He wears old clothes and looks bedraggled. He definitely does not speak the Queen's English.
However, he came to my office to open 529 plans for the five (5) special needs children that he and his wife have adopted. He put his absolute trust in me.
You say that I need to aim higher. There could be no higher aim than to serve clients such as this.
[/quote]
Brokers who work with poor people are poor brokers. Set your sights a little higher, son.
Annuity Guy:
First, I'm not your f__king son. Second, I'm 51 years old and a 23 year veteran of this business. Third, I have $125 mil under management. Fourth, I netted $525,000 last year.
If I don't help a few lower income and less sophisticated clients along the way to Mercedes heaven, who will?
[quote=dashampersand]
Annuity Guy:
First, I'm not your f__king son. Second, I'm 51 years old and a 23 year veteran of this business. Third, I have $125 mil under management. Fourth, I netted $525,000 last year.
If I don't help a few lower income and less sophisticated clients along the way to Mercedes heaven, who will?
[/quote]I say you committed securities fraud because you allowed the schlub to open college funding investment for "special needs" kids.
You've already told the assembled that you do not have a degree--so I suggest your point of view carries a huge degree of prejudice.
I never said that I don't have a college degree. I do. However, when I was in college I had no intention of becoming a financial advisor, so my degree is not pertinent. In the past years I have obtained designations (alphabet soup) to put on my card. My clients don't ask if I have a degree and those who know that my degree is not in finance don't care.
That being said, I agree with you that there are a lot of very unqualified people in this industry. It is scary to think of the unsuspecting people who trust someone who can't string two thoughts together with their hard earned dollars.
[quote=babbling looney]
You’ve already told the assembled that
you do not have a degree–so I suggest your point of view carries a
huge degree of prejudice.
I never said that I don't have a college degree. I do. However, when I was in college I had no intention of becoming a financial advisor, so my degree is not pertinent. In the past years I have obtained designations (alphabet soup) to put on my card. My clients don't ask if I have a degree and those who know that my degree is not in finance don't care.
That being said, I agree with you that there are a lot of very unqualified people in this industry. It is scary to think of the unsuspecting people who trust someone who can't string two thoughts together with their hard earned dollars.
[/quote]My bad. Sorry. I guess I can assume that you would not recommend that a son or daughter blow off a formal education .
I have been involved in discussions at the NASD regarding instituting an education requirement. There are more than a few people who actually believe that the reason the penny stock market fraud occurs is because the NASD does not have an education requirement.
They suggest that stupid people are more easily led down the wrong path and/or taht people who are not motivated enough to finish something as basic as college will be tempted to take shortcuts in business--and chief among those shortcuts from the NASD's perspective is conning investors.
The argument against an education policy is that the broker/dealer should be free to hire whomever they want until society--through its elected representatives--creates an education standard. The reason that doctors have to have gone to college is not because the hospitals that hire them have that requirement but because our various states do.
Anyway, we're not going to get an educational requirement--and that's too bad. But that does not mean that the selective firms will not self-impose one and I, for one, wish there were a lot more selective firms.
I also believe that most clients think that brokers are college educated and would be surprised to learn that the door is actually open to losers who can't be bothered enough to matriculate, much less graduate.
[quote=dashampersand]
Annuity Guy:
First, I'm not your f__king son. Second, I'm 51 years old and a 23 year veteran of this business. Third, I have $125 mil under management. Fourth, I netted $525,000 last year.
If I don't help a few lower income and less sophisticated clients along the way to Mercedes heaven, who will?
[/quote]
I know you're not my son, but I feel like you are because of my relationship with your mom.
[quote=annuity guy]
I know you're not my son, but I feel like you are because of my relationship with your mom.
[/quote]I began message boarding when I was on the road most of the time--when you've been to every major city in the world and most of the minor ones in the United States it eventually becomes very boring to be in hotels.
Anyway, about ten years ago I discovered AOL message boards and became addicted to them. It was a fun way to spend and evening in a hotel since my wife didn't want me to date.
Now that I no longer travel that much I no longer get to engage in really great message boards.
Against that backdrop I want to declare the above to be in the top five all time one liners.
My mother and father are deceased. Thanks for reminding me that I am an orphan.
[quote=Put Trader] [quote=annuity guy]
I know you're not my son, but I feel like you are because of my relationship with your mom.
[/quote]
I began message boarding when I was on the road most of the time--when you've been to every major city in the world and most of the minor ones in the United States it eventually becomes very boring to be in hotels.
Anyway, about ten years ago I discovered AOL message boards and became addicted to them. It was a fun way to spend and evening in a hotel since my wife didn't want me to date.
Now that I no longer travel that much I no longer get to engage in really great message boards.
Against that backdrop I want to declare the above to be in the top five all time one liners.
[/quote]
Thank you very much.
[quote=dashampersand]My mother and father are deceased. Thanks for reminding me that I am an orphan.[/quote]
You're welcome, son.
[quote=babbling looney]
I never said that I don't have a college degree. I do.
However, when I was in college I had no intention of becoming a
financial advisor, so my degree is not pertinent. In the past
years I have obtained designations (alphabet soup) to put on my
card. My clients don't ask if I have a degree and those who know
that my degree is not in finance don't care.
We all have things that we go "nuts" about--mine is the dumbing down of society in the frenzied attempt to make the various contingencies in our population "equal."
It was thought that the segment that historically has been lagging could catch up with the segment that historically had not been lagging--get the code, boys and girls?
Anway that proved to be impossible--as it turned out there is such a thing as "gray matter" and "native intelligence" and in a mean triick somewhere along the way God decided that some of us would be very good at thinkiing but not so good at dribbling a basketball, while others would be wizards at dribbling a basketball but would not be able to read and write. Just the way it is, a mean spirited trick by some supreme being.
But I'm going off on a tangent. I know, I know the assembled cannot believe that Put Trader would do that, but alas it happens. Let's snap back into sharp focus.
There are many reasons to get a degree--it's good to know about lots of things is a really great reason.
But when it comes to submitting a resume very often all that matters is do you have the degee or not. It's a way of separating the cream from the curd--a door opener.
It also carries panache in society as a whole. If that were not true there would be no desire to lie about your eduction. A year or so ago one of the guys I work with came into my office to ask if I would be bothered by what was bothering him.
It seems his wife of twenty-five or more years had, for some reason, decided to confess to him that she never finished at Colgate where she had led him to believe she had completed a degree in something or other.
He felt betrayed, as if she were confessing to an affair or something. We talked about it for awhile and came to no decision. The gist of the discussions was how it certainly doesn't matter, how she had done a great job as a mother, been a great wife and everything else--but in his mind she was not who she thought she was.
I think clients are the same way. They don't ask if you're degreed or not because it's assumed that you are. I believe that a great many clients would actually leave a broker if they knew that broker had not been intellectually capable of completing a degree--regardless of what it is in.
From time to time somebody suggests that clients should be given a short biographical sketch of the individual they are entrusting with their assets--a week or so after they opened their account they would get a welcome letter from the firm, and included with that letter would be information about the broker including when they got registered, what they scored on qualification exams and their educational background.
Go buy a box of Cheerios--you'll get far more information about what you just bought than you'll get if you write a check and hand it to a broker.
Why is that?
[quote=dashampersand]
Put:
This afternoon after I wrote my original post, I had a man come to my office to do some business. He is 48 years old and a factory worker. He is not college educated and works a line job 55 hours a week. He plans to work until he is at least 70. He wears old clothes and looks bedraggled. He definitely does not speak the Queen's English.
However, he came to my office to open 529 plans for the five (5) special needs children that he and his wife have adopted. He put his absolute trust in me.
You say that I need to aim higher. There could be no higher aim than to serve clients such as this.
[/quote]
You can't make a living working with people like this, but it's great that you did find some time to help him with his project.
[quote=babbling looney]
If you have your entire net worth tied up in a single stock--even if it's where you work--you have to be a moron. How bright does somebody have to be in order to know that the stock market can go down?
Moron may be a bit harsh, but I have to agree here a bit; with the codicil that the broker who didn't educate his client about a stop loss order or diversifyiing assets has been remiss in his duties. Individuals who, on their own, left huge amounts of assets in any one company, may not be morons, but certainly can be classifed as stupid, lazy and greedy.
What is also ridiculous is the idea that there is anybody in this country who was denied a college education due to lack of funding. Most of the greatest generation were in the service and were eligible for the GI Bill--as has every veteran since.
Among younger people--since the draft lottery--there has been an abundance of student loans and scholarships. It's apolgizing again to believe that those who do not have college educations don't have them because they couldn't afford them.
I agree that almost (notice I said almost) anyone who has the drive and determination to succeed can find the money, and the counseling to obtain the money, to get a good college education. However, I differ here from Put in that I don't think a degree is the "be all, end all" of success. I know many, very successful entrepenuers, who are not blessed with a degree. It is the drive, determination and native wit that make them a success.
Now, let's ask a philosophical question. Should somebody who thinks like I do be allowed to sit on arbitration panels--or should such panels be closed to men and women who are personal responsibility zealots?
I think you mean anti personal responsibility zealots. People need to take responsibility for their own actions or lack of actions. There is a culture of victimhood in our society, and too many people that are so politically correct that they don't want to face down the needy, greedy "victims" for fear of seeming hard.
So, part of the debacle can be attributed to greed and ignorance on the part of the investor. Part can be attributed to lazy inattentiveness and fiduciary failure on the part of the broker. However, the biggest portion of the blame should be and rightly is attributed to Bernie Ebbers and he deserves every minute of jail time he serves.
[/quote]
[quote=Put Trader] I have been involved in discussions at the NASD regarding instituting an education requirement. [/quote]
Was this before, or after, they cornered you during an audit?
An audit would be the ONLY time puttyndacrack would have an opportunity to have a discussion with anybody from the NASD, with the exception of an investigation for breaking the rules (which is highly likely, given his ignorance).
Put:
I would like to remind you that 529 Plans are not only for college expenses but can be used to pay for qualified expenses at licensed trade schools. Hence, securities fraud might be a little inappropriate to use. Also, since I am not a practicing physician, I do not feel qualified to determine the potential of my clients' children to attend college.