Monday, September 23, 1996
Wallet Surgery 101
by MF Edible

The Wise suffer from medic envy. When an investor claims he can make his own financial decisions, he is countered with "Would you perform brain surgery on yourself?" In a recent televised ad, a man is shown on a dentist's chair, performing his own dental work. I am not sure when taking a simple Series 7 exam became the equivalent to years of medical school, but am I the only one who is a bit miffed?

Someone should walk into a full-service brokerage office and ask "Is there a Doctor in the House?" I am sure the walls would reply, "I am not a doctor but I play one on TV." Maybe it is the recent bull market bonuses that have fattened their salaries so much that they make as much as doctors, or maybe the cold-calling rookies have grown so used to the telephone around their ears that they liken it to a stethoscope, but the similarities end there.

Before I make even more enemies, let me say that I am merely attacking the architecture and not the architects. There are plenty of brokers out there who are sticking their necks out and making solid stock picks for their clients. They are not just sitting back, staring at the past performance of high-load mutual funds, and professing that to be financial guidance. After all, you pay the doctor, not the person who found the doctor for you. The bad brokers are afraid that educating their, um, patients, will lead to the Independence War. It does not take a good salesman to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo, just an ignorant Eskimo. That is why they prefer us to stick to our igloos and avoid thinking in terms of relative performance.

This isn't General Hospital. This is Zell N. Loadfunds's Traveling Medicine Show, peddling placebo elixir. If this is an operating table, then ignorance is anesthesia, and that is no scalpel, but merely a hand heading towards your back pocket. If you are a good kid the doctor will give you a sucker. (Guess who plays the role of the sucker in Wallet Street?) In the end, both bills are huge, but only one just planted you with a mental epidural. If you still don't get it, then maybe you are ready for that toilet ring which reads "lobotomized for your protection." If you do get it, park a lawn chair and shed a tear for the daily malpractice. Medicine in the hands of amateurs is never pretty.

Transmitted: 9/23/96