Mutual Fund Whistleblower Tells of Beating

[Judi Lynn]

Mutual Fund Whistleblower Tells of Beating




By MARCY GORDON
AP Business Writer

January 27, 2004, 4:28 PM EST


WASHINGTON -- He was dragged from his car and beaten with a brick after confronting an investment-company superior about trading abuses in mutual funds, Peter Scannell told Congress Tuesday.

His complaint about abuses was brushed aside by federal regulators but eventually helped lead to civil fraud charges against fund giant Putnam Investments.

At the hearing where he testified on Tuesday, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., the head of a Senate panel, denounced what they called hidden and excessive fees that gouge millions of mutual fund investors. Spitzer also said it is unfair that mutual funds charge ordinary shareholders much higher fees than pension funds and other big investors.

Fitzgerald called the fund industry "the world's largest skimming operation ... a trough from which fund managers, brokers and other insiders are steadily siphoning off an excessive slice of the nation's household, college and retirement savings."
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-mutual-funds-whistleblowers,0,4064919.story?coll=sns-ap-business-headlines

[Homer12]

1. The Age-of-Crony capatalism seems no differnet than Organized Crime

Bushco is great at this stuff also, lets not forget about them.

[lastknowngood]

2. it is

organized crime.

[Beaker]

3. The Big Skim has yet to happen- privatizing Social Security...

Fitzgerald called the fund industry "the world's largest skimming operation ... a trough from which fund managers, brokers and other insiders are steadily siphoning off an excessive slice of the nation's household, college and retirement savings."

just wait until they get their greedy little rat-hands on the Social Security money.

[denverbill]

6. Why do you think they want to privatize everything?

Medicare? Hundreds of billions of dollars per year. If they privatize it, and add in their 15% profit, that amounts to tens of billions of dollars in profits.

The Armed Forces? Again, hundreds of billions of dollars, and no way to get their little hands on it. Solution? Privatize parts of it. That way, at least some of the hundreds of billions can turn a profit to some greedy bastard.

Prisons, social services, welfare, you name it. The solution is to privatize it.

Remember, if it's not privatized, nobody makes a profit.

[denverbill]

4. Wow. That Fitzgerald (R-Ill) sounds more like a (D-Ill).

I wish it was a Democrat making that statement. I'm glad somebody made it though!

[ahimsa]

5. Let's see how he does..

..with the CIA leak case.

[xchrom]

7. they may have temporarily

put away the bricks -- but i'm guessing folk in the industry figure it's worth the risk to keep doing this sort of thing.
of course with bushco setting the national example it's a wonder territorial gun fights haven't broken out.

[Dover]

8. Wow...being an invester in stocks and mutual funds feels dirty

Guilt by association....or by being an investor. I would wash my hands of most stocks and mutual funds if I hadn't already...simply because I wouldn't want to support these criminal companies and activities.

[Just Me]

9. Unleashed capitalism is killing this country,...

,...and if we fail to face up to that reality and fail to create and enforce higher standards of accountability and responsibility on the practice, there will be those who will be forced to eat the warnings of Marx that, without limitations, capitalist countries will ultimately choke on their own consumption. This country already has capitalism wrapped around its neck and we are just beginning to experience the big squeeze.