A few days ago, I, your humble servant, flew from LAX to Denver
and from Denver to (as I thought) Fargo, North Dakota. The best
part of the trip by far was sitting next to my beautiful and
saintly wife. The second best part was meeting an astoundingly
gorgeous Fox News fan named Sara Bard at my gate at LAX. Her
husband owns an Italian restaurant in Nashville. She loves Cavuto
and she’s a knockout. How bad can it be? The trip went great until
we got on our little Embraer to Fargo—and the Embraer was in no
way the problem. The problem was that the airplane before us
on approach to the Fargo airport had an electrical failure. This
prevented its landing gear from deploying. The airplane had to land
on its belly on the runway.
That meant the runway was closed so we poor hapless people on
the following flight had nowhere to go. Airlines now have their
planes fly with little fuel because fuel is expensive and heavy and
they don’t want to make the plane more expensive to operate. (This
seems to me to be a major safety hazard, by the way.) So, we could
not circle to see what happened. Instead, we were diverted to Grand
Forks. There we sat on the ground until we refueled. Then, back to
Fargo to land on the secondary runway.
The pilot, a sincere former Navy pilot from Puerto Rico, said
that frankly he considered the secondary runway to be marginal but
he would do his best and it would be fine. This scared me to
death.
Because I am a commentator, among the thoughts that ran through
my mind were these: “What would be the last thoughts I should tell
my readers?”
I came up with a few. One is about Wall Street. Yours truly has
spent much of his life following Wall Street. For many years, I
wrote long exposes of questionable deals for
Barron’s, the great financial news weekly. And I
was the victim of some questionable deals, where management
basically stole our company from us.
But in my long years of dealing with Wall Street brokerages, I
have never been mistreated by my brokers. I started as a very small
client of Merrill Lynch when I was 12 and have had an account there
since then. My father and mother had accounts there starting in the
1940s. We never had even the faintest suspicion of a problem.
I have an account in Virginia (inherited from my parents). The
broker is a man named Robert Lobban. I have never met him and the
account is trivial but he’s always available. I have a larger but
by no means large account in Los Angeles with a man named Kevin
Hanley whom I have known since he was a child. His main colleague
is a young fellow named Jerry Au. Both of them are available and
helpful and straightforward at any hour day or night. They have
assistants whom I have never laid eyes on named Anie Garapetian,
Kristie Rivera, and Raul Hernandez. These are people of Wall Street
and I would trust them with my last nickel. They have helped me
with mortgages, investments, figuring out where to take money for
taxes. They are Johnny on the Spot.
I have accounts at Fidelity. They are always available on the
phone even at three in the morning. They are so inexpensive they
might as well be free. I have a planner who works through them
although he’s independent. His name is Phil DeMuth. I would trust
him with my kidneys.
Much of what I have invested I have through an investment firm
called DFA, here in Southern California. They are thorough,
incredibly efficient and effective , and seem to me to cost almost
nothing.
I have a friend named Ray Lucia who talks a lot on the radio
about finance. He has forgotten far more than I ever knew about
personal finance. I often appear on the same platform with him at
his events and we get paid by the same entity. He’s been as honest
with me as anyone could be. I am not a client of his, but I have
learned an amazing amount from him.
My point is not to sell you on these people or firms. They all
have plenty of business and don’t need any more. I mention
their names so they can frame this article and put it on their
walls. My point is that with all of the talk about criminals in
finance — and I am sure there are plenty — my experience with
these big and small players has been superb. There are many fine
men and women out there who can help you with your money. You have
to look, get references, look up their records, but if you do, you
will find people who will hold your hand even in these difficult
times and guide you through the dark forests of money.
It’s good not to be alone.
By the way, we landed without a hitch on the alternate runway at
Fargo. I had a great time there and so did my wife. Fargo is a long
way from Beverly Hills, but it’s worth going a long way to be among
such friendly people as the Fargonians.
