Saturday, May 26, 2007

Al Smith Retiring from Comment on Kentucky

Al Smith Retiring from Comment on Kentucky
Saturday, 26 May 2007

Al Smith Al Smith announced last week that he is ending his 33 year run as host and producer of Comment on Kentucky on November 16.

Al is one of the greatest people I have ever known. He is a man I dearly love and who I want to be when I grow up.

His impact on Kentucky and the nation is incalculable.

Comment on Kentucky is a great concept developed by Al and Len Press, the visionary founder of Kentucky Educational Television.

I grew up in Northern Kentucky and KET was my only television news source about the state I lived in.

Like many Kentuckians, my television news came from out of state (Cincinnati in my case) and KET was an important part of my learning process.

Being on Comment on Kentucky for the first time (1984) was a great thrill for me. I've been on frequently and never get tired of it.

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Len Press

Thus, I will get that same thrill next Friday (June 1) when Al has me as a guest on the show.

Comment on Kentucky informs but also educates. The show brings up issues and ideas that stir debate and gets people talking.

Comment on Kentucky viewers learn "the story behind the story." Although the show has a number of "regulars," Al will often host journalists from different regions and allows viewers to get a true statewide perspective.

It will be impossible to truly replace Al. His leaving is similar to when Walter Cronkite retired. My advice to his successor is to keep to Al's vision as closely as possible.

Al is not just my role model, he is someone who has advised me in all aspects of my life, including my health.

Although the weight loss and fitness regime I started two months ago will be ongoing, there have been some noticeable results. When I appear on June 1, it will be the lowest weight Comment on Kentucky viewers have ever seen me at.

I don't have a suit that fits me and hope my tailor will be cooperate by Friday. Otherwise, I may be on the show in an extremely baggy suit or in running shorts.

I'll ask Al for advice on the best option.

Don

Rudolph Giuliani and the OxyContin people
Sunday, 20 May 2007

Well, now if I were the President of this land

You know, I’d declare total war on the pusher man.

God damn the pusher.

-Steppenwolf

ImageRudolph Giuliani wants to be President of the United States. He claims to be tough on criminals.

In some cases, he is—unless the criminals hire him to be their lawyer.

The people who make OxyContin did something horrible: they sold a drug they knew was addictive and acted like it wasn’t.

I thought the makers of OxyContin got off easy when they agreed to a $600 million fine. Three of their top executives paid an additional $34 million. No jail time.

It was an wimpy settlement with a company that sold over $9 billion dollars of OxyContin.

The reason for the government’s light tough was found in the Washington Post. Rudolph Giuliani was a lawyer for the company that makes OxyContin.

The Post said that Giuliani personally met with government lawyers more than half a dozen times.

Read more...
Kentucky Education Co
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Peter Lynch's Fidelity Investments Fined $400,000 for Misleading Troops.

Peter Lynch's Fidelity Investments Fined $400,000 for Misleading Troops.

There's gonna be Hell,
When you hear mother freedom start ringing her bell.
It's gonna feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you...
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue."

-Toby Keith

In August, 2004, I wrote a column entitled "Save Our Soldiers from Peter Lynch".

Peter Lynch It followed up on an award-winning New York Times series written by Diana Henriques. I wrote several columns about Mr. Lynch and Fidelity Investment, the company where he serves as vice chairman.

Fidelity was peddling an archaic style of mutual fund to military people called contractual mutual funds.

A contractual mutual fund is a terrible deal. Congress outlawed it last year. If Lynch and Fidelity had truly thought that contractual funds were great, they would have made Lynch's famous Magellan Fund contractual. They did not.

Military people have often been prey for questionable financial operators such as payday lenders. The reason is thatsoldiers are often young and financially inexperienced but still make decent money.

I'll be willing to bet that Peter Lynch does not have his money in a contractual fund nor do his Hollywood pals like Lily Tomlin. Fidelity only pushed the stuff on military people.

In 2004, I asked people to stand up for our soldiers and write to everyone they could about the problem. Many groups that support the military did the same.

Finally, The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a group with real clout, listened.

The NASD reached a settlement with Fidelity Investments Institutional Services. Fidelity agreed to pay $400,000 to settle a complaint accusing them of producing misleading sales materials for the Fidelity Destiny I and Fidelity Destiny II contractual mutual funds.

Fidelity will not admit any wrongdoing, but the sales literature that they gave to soldiers fail to mention the 50% sales charge that soldiers were to pay on the funds.

A pretty big OOPS. A fund doesn't look so good when you take 50% off the top.

Fidelity sold a lot of product to soldiers through First Command Financial Services, a company whichpaid $12 million to settle regulatory charges stating it mislead soldiers about the fees and performance of the contractual plans First Command was peddling.

Even though $400,000 is chump change to a guy like Peter Lynch and a billion-dollar company like Fidelity, the settlement is a black mark on their record.

I have offered a challenge several times to Peter Lynch: if he is unable to prove that a soldier could make a good return with a Fidelity contractual fund, he should go to Iraq and take the place of the soldier owning the fund.

Lynch is still in Boston, and soldiers with his contractual funds are still in Iraq. Since Congress banned sales of the funds, future sales are no longer a concern. Current contractual funds, however, remain in place. The NASD will use the $400,000 to help military people make informed financial decisions.

People ask why I single out Mr. Lynch. At the time when contractual funds were being peddled to soldiers, Lynch was using his "Mr. Clean" image to do television commercials for Fidelity with his Hollywood chums Lily Tomlin and Don Rickles.

Lynch and Fidelity can't have it both ways: they can't use the stellar returns that Lynch achieved (many years ago) with his Magellan fund to attract high-end customers while selling garbage to soldiers.

It is like a fundamentalist church with a strip club and casino in the basement.

I'm hoping that the fine cost Lynch and Fidelity a lot more than the $400,000 that they forked over.

Even if manyAmericans have opposed the Iraq war, they have universally supported the people who have fought and died in it. Military people do their job with more honor and courage than I will ever have.

It's why I get angry when financial companies take advantage of them.

The $400,000 settlement has gotten little notice in the media, but I hope that changes.

When Americans find out that Peter Lynch and his Fidelity Company were not playing straight with soldiers, I hope there will be hell. I hope Americans make the leaders at Fidelity feel like the whole world is raining down on them.

Brought to you courtesy, of the Red, White and Blue.

Don McNay is the author of the Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com or read other things that he has written at www.donmcnay.com. His award-winning column is syndicated to over 200 newspapers.
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