Cecil Fielder: Sins of the Father

Cecil Fielder: The Sins of the Father

"I know that I have to go away. I have to go."

-"Father and Son" by Cat Stevens

Even though angst between father and son can be traced to the beginning of time, I thought it was strange when baseball star Prince Fielder showed animosity towards his father, Cecil, a former baseball star himself.

The book on Cecil was that he was a well-rounded family man.

Then I read published reports which stated that Cecil ran through the $47 million that he made as a baseball player.

According to an article in the Detroit News, Cecil lost a ton of money at the casinos and never told his family. Nothing seemed amiss until the foreclosure people showed up. Cecil and his wife then had a bitter divorce.

Sports Illustrated said that Cecil allegedly helped himself to $200,000 of his son Prince's signing bonus. Prince was served by a lawsuit process server seeking Cecil during a baseball game.

You can see why Prince is somewhat hostile.

Money woes caused the destruction of the Fielder family, just as it has for many families. Money is a leading cause of divorce. Cecil's hidden gambling spawned a lack of trust.

Although gambling was a huge part of the problem, Cecil also lost money making bad business decisions. That is really sad.

When you have $47 million, you don't need to make ANY business decisions. You just need to hang on to your money. You can invest it conservatively and live the life you want.

The smart thing for Fielder to do would have been to have set some financial goals that would have gotten a decent return with little risk.

If Cecil had put the money in treasury bonds paying 5%, the interest would have been over $2.3 million a year.

Some people can live on $2.3 million a year. I probably can.

There was no need for Cecil to take business risks. He did anyway.

Cecil went into businesses like classic cars, real estate and limousine service.

Most successful business owners start from the ground up and know their industries intimately. Baseball has no correlation to any of the businesses Fielder was in. Umpires don't whisper hot real estate tips in your ear.

Now Cecil has nothing, and his bad decisions helped destroy his family.

Watching the Fielder family feud is painful. Baseball is a sport that worships father-son combinations. If Cecil could have kept it together, he would have been a hero to a new generation.

I don't know the whole story. Cecil blames his ex-wife for the family rift and claims she was a wild spender. He might be right, but I would have liked to have seen how the family would have held up if Cecil had stuck his money in the bank.

You used to hear frequent stories of athletes going broke. It doesn't happen as often now. In recent years, specialized firms have started handling players' money, and many have done a good job.

Also, baseball players make more money than they used to. I remember when Pete Rose's goal was to someday make $100,000. Now the bat boy probably makes that.

Few people get the opportunity to make really big money, and professional athletes have short careers. Businesspeople can go broke and start over, but Cecil is not going to get another chance to hit home runs.

It doesn't sound like Cecil has learned his lesson. He told Sports Illustrated that he is going to hit the big time with a broadband network. He and Evander Holyfield are partners. I'd feel better about Cecil's chances if his partner were a broadband wiz instead of a former boxer.

Cecil is swinging for the fences in the business world and hoping for a home run.

In business, like in baseball, there are more strikeouts than home runs. Like playing baseball, business is not as easy as it looks.

I really liked Cecil Fielder as a player and hope he gets his life together. Until he does, I can see why Prince is following Cat Stevens' advice.

Prince knows he has to go away and not make the mistakes his dad made.

Story Behind the Song

Father and Son

Cat Stevens was an incredible writer and performer during his early 1970's hey day and "Father and Son" is one of his great efforts. Cat performs it with incredible passion.

For some reason, Cat is the only person who seems to be able to do the song well.

Johnny Cash and Fiona Apple did a bad duet on Johnny's last album. They are two incredibly talented artists (and two favorites of mine). The pairing should have worked. It did not.

The timing of the song is off and Rick Rubin, the producer, did not know how to use Fiona effectively. I keep listening to the song hoping it will grow on me. It does not.

As bad as the Johnny and Fiona effort was, it is far better than one by Rod Stewart. His is almost impossible to listen to.

I really like Rod too, but would rather be subjected to a week of "Do You Think I'm Sexy" than to listen to his version of "Father and Son" again.

Father and Son is a great song that apparently only Cat Stevens can sing.

Don McNay is Chairman of the Board for McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com and read other things he has written at http://www.donmcnay.com/. His award-winning column is syndicated throughout over 200 newspapers.

Carl Kremer and Ken Griffey Jr.

Carl Kremer and Ken Griffey Jr.

While the Fielder family drama has been playing out, I had the chance to see happier sports moments last week with Moeller high school basketball coach Carl Kremer and his former student Ken Griffey Jr.

As Jenny Elder noted in the award winning Richmond Register, Carl brought his defending Ohio state championship team to a camp at Eastern Kentucky University.

I watched Moeller show why his team will again will be one of the best in the nation.

Carl is one of my closest friends and the column I wrote about him in March ranks as one of the most popular in the history of my web page.

On the same day I was visiting with Carl and his parents at EKU, Griffey was being honored by his former team, the Seattle Mariners.

The tribute made to Griffey was one of the most touching that I have ever seen. Although the drama was marred by the Cincinnati Reds telecasters, who cut away from the ceremony to run a Gold Star Chili commercial, you can tell the Mariners put on a first class event.

Seattle is one of my favorite places and the people are very special. The tribute to Griffey was a classic example of their class and character.

When Ken Griffey Jr. was a junior in high school, Carl told me that Griffey would be the greatest player to ever play baseball. Only a series of crippling injuries has kept Carl's prediction from being correct.


Jenny Elder's Richmond Register story about Carl Kremer and EKU

http://www.richmondregister.com/localsports/local_story_173222002.html?keyword=topstory

Carl Kremer, Tubby Smith and the Pursuit of Happiness

http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/243/9/

Seattle Times: Plenty of Cheers to Greet Griffey

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003759459_griffey23.html

Here is a column I wrote in February about a Cincinnati Red who I am quite proud of:

Josh Hamilton, Battling His Demons

http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/235/9/

And When I Die

And When I Die

“and when I die, and when I’m gone
they’ll be one child born in this world to carry on”

-Laura Nyro (Blood, Sweat and Tears)

Like most people, I recognize that I am going to die someday. Unlike most people, I have a lot of life insurance.

I started my financial planning career with a company that focused on life insurance, and ever since then, I’ve been a believer.

I have purchased a number of life insurance policies to achieve different goals.

I have a policy that will help endow a law school scholarship named for Peter Perlman at the University of Kentucky. Pete is a former president of the American Trial Lawyers Association, and he was instrumental in launching my career.

I also have a policy that will pay to a charity and another that will support the scholarship fund named for my mother and sister’s scholarship at Eastern Kentucky University.

Few people think to purchase life insurance policies for their charitable donations, even though the concept has tremendous tax and planning benefits.

The concept of buying life insurance unnerves most people.

Life insurance forces people to deal with the idea that death may come and come in an untimely fashion. Although I was very good at it, selling life insurance was the hardest thing I ever did.

It was impossible for some people to get their arms around dying. I had a medical professional spend hours explaining how he was sure he was going to live to 90.

He died at age 50. I hope someone convinced him to get insurance, but I suspect they never did.

Although I am going to help charities and do other things, the bulk of my insurance is designed to assist my family. Most people buy life insurance with their family in mind.

I don’t think that as many think about the next step.

What will the family do with the money?

When you hear that 90% of people who receive a lump sum will blow it in five years, some people conclude that life insurance is futile.

Why give your family a lump sum and have them blow it?

Most insurance policies have options to pay out over time, but few people use them. It limits them to the terms, rates and restrictions of the insurance company.

Thus, I came up with a simple system. My life insurance is owned by a trust.

When I die, the trustee will buy annuities for the beneficiaries. The annuities will pay monthly for the rest of the beneficiaries’ lives and increase at 3% a year.

When I die, I want to assure those people will have money for the rest of their lives. They won’t be susceptible to quick-buck artists and outside pressures.

A lot of hasty decisions are made when a family member dies. Many of them are bad. There seems to be an army of vultures waiting to prey on the vulnerable.

It almost happened to me.

When my mother died, a “friend” who I had not seen since the 8th grade started calling. When I didn’t immediately call back, he had his elderly mother call.

He wanted to buy my mom’s house. He wanted to make sure “that someone from the neighborhood” lived there.

I almost bought the story. It is a wonderful neighborhood and many of the neighbors have lived there for 30 or 40 years. One of them painted my mother’s garage (for free) and it has a real sense of community.

I thought he wanted to move back. It turns out he wanted to get “a deal” so he could turn the house into cheap rental property.

It would have been tough for a person off the street to con me, but it is a lot easier for a “friend” to do so.

As Glenn Frey once said, “The lure of easy money has a very strong appeal.”
I don’t want my family to be in a position where a “friend” can burn them after my death.

That is why the combination of life insurance, a trust and lifetime annuities works for me.

I know that when I die and when I am gone, money will be in the hands of my loved ones to help them carry on.

Story Behind the Song

Laura Nyro

Four years ago, I was stuck in Plano, Texas and went into a small bookstore. I had five dollars in my wallet and the store did not take credit cards. Thus, I wound up selecting a biography of Laura Nyro in the $3.99 discount bin.

It was a great choice. The book was an interesting glimpse at one of the greatest songwriters of the 1960's. She "retired" from the music business at age 24 and died at 49 (in 1997) but her brief career was peppered with hits.

Media mogul David Geffen started his career as her manager.

Here a link to the biography I enjoyed so much:

Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro

The Polls

The late Gene Snyder was my congressman for most of my early life. He would frequently send out polls with questions like "are you in favor of giving away the Panama Canal?". He would later send out a note that 98% of his constituents did not want the Canal given away.

I am afraid that my polls last week were out of the Gene Snyder model. 96.6% of the people who responded think that Pike County, Kentucky should sue the makers of OxyContin while 96.3% think that Ralph Nader was a factor in George Bush becoming President.

This week, I ask a simpler question.

Do you have life insurance, other than insurance offered by your employer?

My second question is part of another project.

Do you think state lotteries should be outlawed?

To vote in this week's poll follow the link below. The poll will be on the left hand side of the web page.

Weekly Poll

McNay on Money

Protecting People from Being Taken Advantage Of : Safety, Annuities and Trusts.

I hit all of the topics from this week's column in an article I wrote several years ago for Best's Review, a magazine published by the A.M. Best Company. You can read a copy of the article by following the link below.

Advice for Injury Victims


Life Insurance Trust

This week's column makes a reference to a life insurance trust that I used. I think it is a simple but excellent way to assure that my family is taken care of. If you want a prototype of what I did, email don@donmcnay.com and let me know. I will have to make it very generic so that I don't disclose any personal information but it will give you an idea.

Don

Don McNay is the Chairman of the Board for McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky. He is the author of The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher. His award-winning syndicated column appears in over 200 publications.

Ralph Nader, Movie Star

Ralph Nader, Movie Star

“They’re gonna put me in the movies.
They’re gonna make a big star out of me.
The biggest fool that ever hit the big time.
And all I have to do is act naturally.”

- Johnny Russell (Buck Owens and Ringo Starr)


Ralph Nader was my childhood hero. Before he became a perennial office seeker, Nader had a reputation for protecting consumers.

The OxyContin scandal was tailor-made for the Ralph Nader of the past.

It was a situation where a big drug company was caught peddling a drug that they knew was addictive. The prosecutor rolled over when Rudolph Giuliani agreed to represent the drug company. In the end, the company executives got a sweetheart deal with no jail time.

The old Ralph Nader would have come out swinging. He would have had protests going around the clock. When I searched Google News for the words “Nader” and “OxyContin,” there was not a single match.

Instead, I found out that Nader is starring in a movie.
First, Ralph tried to be president; now, he is trying to be Brad Pitt.

Ralph suffers from Al Gore-itis. He wanted to be as important as Al Gore, so he helped torpedo Gore’s chance to be president.

Gore won an Oscar; Ralph wants his Oscar, too.

Gore’s movie is about a subject he is passionate about: global warming. Nader’s movie is about a subject that he is passionate about: himself.

Nader used to do things that helped people. His crusade for product safety was important in its day.

Now he is consumed by ego. Going Hollywood is Ralph’s latest scheme to downplay his role in putting George Bush in the White House.

O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson have a better chance of redeeming their public images than Nader does. Ralph let his ego do his thinking, and as a result, George Bush became president.

It is a little hard to whitewash that with a movie.

I haven’t seen the Nader movie, and I never will. I know it will flop. No one wants to hear about Nader. He has become irrelevant.

When it comes to public redemption, Al Gore stole a page from the old Nader playbook.

Gore was on the outs for several years. He is more popular now than ever because he has become focused on a cause, not on himself. You can sense Gore’s passion about global warming. It is an issue that everyone, including George Bush, now recognizes as a crisis.

Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was a wake-up call. Just like Nader’s book, Unsafe at Any Speed, was for an earlier generation.

It is sad to watch Nader disintegrate. He is the political version of David Hasselhoff, a star from another era who is publicly melting down.

At least the Hoff is big in Germany. Ralph doesn’t even have that.

If Nader could focus on helping others, he could regain a speck of relevance.

Instead of heading to Hollywood, he should be speaking out about drugs like OxyContin.

Corporate executives pushed OxyContin to millions of people. People died. People’s lives are ruined.

People would have taken heed if Nader had called out Rudolph Giuliani for his despicable deal-making. Ralph was too wrapped up in his movie to notice.

We need someone like the Ralph Nader of 40 years ago to speak out. The Ralph Nader of today is not going to do it.

Pike County, in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, recently hired trial attorney Gary C. Johnson to look at taking legal action against the OxyContin makers. The county will try to recoup the millions of dollars its taxpayers have spent treating addicts.

The leaders of Pike County are taking an innovative approach. If they are successful and others follow, it will punish the OxyContin makers.

It will make other drug companies think twice before they push addictive drugs.

The people in Pike County are showing imagination and leadership.
It’s the type of thing the old Ralph Nader would have done.

I’m glad Pike County didn’t wait for Ralph. Nader is busy preening for the cameras. He is starring as the biggest fool to ever hit the big time.

And all he has to do is act naturally.

Story Behind the Song

"Act Naturally"

I've used another Johnny Russell classic, "Rednecks, White Soxs and Blue Ribbon Beer" as the title of another column.

The enclosed story of how the song became a monster hit for Buck Owens and later for the Beatles is fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Naturally

Previous Columns on Ralph Nader


Whatever Happened to the Consumer Movement?

http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/65/9/


Oops, Ralph Nader Did it Again

http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/202/9/


Macho Man Ralph Nader

http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/223/9/


The Polls

This week there are two poll questions:

1. Should Pike County, Kentucky sue the makers of OxyContin?

2. Was Ralph Nader's Candidacy in 2000 a factor in George Bush becoming President?

To vote in this week's poll follow the link below. The poll is located on our home page on the left hand side.

http://www.donmcnay.com

Don McNay is Chairman of the Board for McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com or read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com. His award-winning column is syndicated to over 200 publications.

McNay on Money

McNay on Money

Save Us from Ben Bernanke

Even before he was appointed as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, I concluded that Ben Bernanke was out of touch with working Americans. Only Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky agreed with me; the United States Senate rubberstamped Ben’s confirmation.

As interest rates on 10-year Treasury Bonds zoomed up to 5.25%, I am wondering how many Senators would like to have that vote back. Bernanke is in over his head in a touchy and tough economic market.

High interest rates are wonderful for people (like me) who are in the structured settlement or annuity business. They are not good for the overall economy.

People in the real estate and construction businesses benefit from lower interest rates. Those people are hurting and they are going to hurt some more. Ben is not the only reason for their pain but he is doing little to ease it.

Here are a couple of columns I wrote about Bernanke last year:

The People Really Calling The Shots
http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/57/9/

Big Shot Bernanke
http://www.donmcnay.com/content/view/37/9/


Speaking of Structured Settlements

Michael Stevens runs an excellent legal blog called Kentucky Injury Law Journal. Last week, he posted an interesting United States Court of Appeals ruling about companies (like the ones you see non-stop on television) who purchase structured settlements from injury victims. The ruling makes it difficult, if not impossible, for someone receiving money from a Federal Torts Claim Act settlement to sell their structured settlement to a settlement purchaser.

This is a wise and well reasoned decision.

Over the years, I’ve cranked out over 50 scholarly articles on arcane subjects like structured settlements, qualified settlement funds and other topics.

I am working on a few more of those “articles that need footnotes”. The case last week reminded me of one that I wrote a few years ago about Federal Torts Claim Act cases.

Thomas Lee Gentry, who is now the head of the civil division for the United States Attorneys in Lexington, Ky., co-authored an article with me about FTCA cases for the Trial Diplomacy Journal. The article seems more relevant now than when we wrote it in 1997.

Trial Diplomacy Journal: "Structured Settlements and the Federally Supported Health Centers Assistance Act of 1995

http://www.mcnay.com/Featured%20Articles.htm

U.S. Sixth Cir. Ct. of Appeals denies state court jurisdiction over structured FTCA settlement per sovereign immunity

http://kentuckylaw.typepad.com/kytortlaw/2007/06/us_sixth_cir_ct.html


Don

Extreme Economics in the Classroom

Extreme Economics in the Classroom

“You’ve got to stand for something, or you will fall for anything.”

-John Mellencamp

Many of my columns are about people who make bad financial decisions. People who take out payday loans and run up debts on high-interest credit cards. People who play the lottery and gamble too much at casinos. People who just don’t know how to handle their money.

I’m often asked where people can go to avoid these mistakes. Dr. Keen Babbage has some answers in his new book, Extreme Economics (Rowman & Littlefield Education, Lanham, Md.).

Dr. Babbage says that personal finance should be a part of the school curriculum.

I’ve known Dr. Babbage for nearly 30 years, and he knows something about finance. He is frugal and has a good eye for investments. His brother Bob, my former college instructor and longtime friend, was instrumental in my getting into the financial planning business. Keen and I both served as treasurer for Bob’s campaigns during his successful terms as a state auditor and secretary of state.

I know the Babbage boys are good at saving a buck. I suspect they learned it at home. Keen mentions that he learned from his Keen Johnson, his grandfather, former Kentucky Governor (and Richmond Register publisher). Governor Johnson was a “saving, thrifty, frugal” governor who instead of buying new office stationery, used the stationery of the previous governor, Happy Chandler.

Johnson drew a line through Governor Chandler’s name and wrote in his own.

In an era when the current Kentucky governor spent over $5,000 on a secret door to his office, I am afraid that Governor Johnson’s example has been lost.

If you look at the saving rate of Americans, it becomes obvious that the frugal ethic of Governor Johnson’s era has not been handed down to the current generation.

We have a society where the haves are getting more and the have-nots are getting less.

There are whole segments of the business world set up so that the more intelligent and cunning can prey on the less savvy. If you go back to Darwin, there is an argument that the world has always been that way.

Education, however, is the way for the have-nots to protect themselves.

Education is the equalizer in any society. It allows the poor to be on equal footing with the rich. If people are able to make informed decisions, they are less likely to make mistakes.

That is where the concept of “Extreme Economics” kicks in.

Babbage’s book is aimed at teachers and educators, but any parent or student would also benefit from reading it. As Babbage notes in his introduction, the United States is facing a financial disaster “that could become absolute melt down.”

Smart money management sounds simple: spend less than you make, and save the rest. I don’t think Americans, especially young Americans, get it. Babbage has some ways to help them understand.

My grandmother was a savings fanatic as she grew up during the depression. She never had a credit card, or any kind of credit, and was able to save money from her meager paycheck from a potato chip factory.

Today’s young people haven’t had to learn hard lessons from a depression, and neither have their parents. Both have the societal pressure to spend on consumer goods.

It wasn’t life and death for grandma to have the coolest cell phone or IPOD. She didn’t have either and seemed to do fine.

A family member has been teaching their 6-year-old about money by paying him to do household chores. No work, no Scooby Doo. My parents taught me in a similar fashion, but schools, along with parents, need to join the battle.

When sound fundamentals are taught at a young age, they become habits. I’ve read many studies that show that people’s financial profiles are decided by the time they are 27. If they run through money at age 27, they will at age 50.

If you don’t know the basics, you will blow your money. It doesn’t make a difference how much money you have. Just ask lottery winners like Jack Whitaker. Like roughly 90% of lottery winners, he went through all of his money in less than five years.

The spend-for-today mentality has to stop. Schools and society have to address the problem, and Dr. Babbage has concrete ideas, exercises and plans.

All of America needs to stand up and take notice. Too many Americans are falling for anything.

Don McNay is Chairman of the Board for McNay Settlement Group in Richmond,Ky. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com or read other things he has written at http://www.donmcnay.com/. His award-winning column is syndicated throughout over 200 newspapers.

Notes From Don

NOTES FROM DON

Representative Harry Moberly

I want to pass along my condolences to Mr.Moberly, whose mother died last Friday.

He allowed me a lengthy interview and said that he and Senator Ed Worley are solidly supporting Steve Beshear for Governor.

Moberly said that he will run for re-election. He also plans to continue serving as Chairman of the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee and will support Jody Richards to be re-elected as house speaker in 2009.

Harry does not read political blogs but I had him specifically deny that he had made a deal to be Budget Chair for Fletcher as one blogger speculated or that he had made a deal to be Budget Chair for Beshear as another speculated.

He also denied a blog post that he was trying to be President of Eastern Kentucky University and a new rumor that has him being named to the Public Service Commission.

It does not appear that Harry is going anywhere but a lot of people seem to think he is.

Comment on Kentucky

The following is a brief summary of some of the topics addressed on Comment on Kentucky on June 1, 2007 in which Don McNay was a guest.

Postsecondary Education

There are two important happenings in Post Secondary Education.

First is the search for new President for the Council on Post Secondary Education to replace the retiring Tom Layzell.

Peggy Bertelsman of Ft. Thomas, who was my high school English teacher 30 years ago, heads up the search committee and told me that the committee hoped to announce a finalist this week but he withdrew over the weekend.

Bertelsman said they are still receiving applications and the committee won't reveal any names until they present one or more candidates to the full council.

On another subject,

Dr. Jim Applegate and Sue Patrick at the Council on Post Secondary Education told me that beginning in 2009, incoming college students will need a score of 19 in math and 21 in reading on the ACT exam to be placed in a credit bearing college course. The current score needed is 18.

State Representative Joni Jenkins, who is employed by Jefferson Community College, is concerned about the increase and said that studies show that the ACT is not always a good predictor of college performance.

State Representative Harry Moberly, who is a director at Eastern Kentucky University strongly favors the increase in ACT scores and said that the move is part of an overall push to bring Kentucky up to national standards on admitting college students.

Congressman Hal Rogers and OxyContin

I've written two recent columns about Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, agreeing to a $635 million settlement with the federal government.

Purdue's lawyer, former New York City Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, negotiated a plea that kept top executives at Purdue from going to jail.

Kentucky Congressmen Hal Rogers asked the FDA to insist OxyContin only be prescribed for severe pain.

Rogers said that would reduce the number of drugs being diverted to the black market.

Purdue Pharma is fighting Rogers’ request.

OxyContin addiction has been a huge problem in Roger's district, and he has been vigilant in his effort to get it more heavily regulated.