Eighty Four: Merrill Lynch

I have an idea for an ad headline for ML: "Give Your Money To Us Because We Lost $27,000,000,000 Of Our Own Last Year." Sallie Krawcheck, who most recently helped to drive Citigroup into the ground, is now the head cheerleader for ML sales. They call it "wealth management," but of course it really just a sales team. The people who bring in the dough don't manage anything, as I can personally attest to. My financial advisor, Mark Thorndyke, out of the Chicago office, presided over a 54% decline in my account and actually tried to shift the blame onto me. In reality, of course he doesn't have a clue why investments go up or down. From my infrequent discussions with him I get the sense that his reading is limited to the daily sports page. A deep thinker he is not.

ML of course is not alone in seeking to be rewarded for failure. The list is pretty impressive - GM, Motorola, UAL - all companies which should be in the grave, but because governments, customers, shareholders, have given money to these losers, they do not die. Then there are companies like Cisco, a company which currently makes money, but also makes incredibly stupid decisions, such as hiring the former MOT IT chief whose steadfast belief was that touch tone phones would never catch on. This is a sure sign that CSCO has passed the tipping point, and is likely to become another MOT or GM.