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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (94550)	2/19/2002 1:37:02 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

As I have probably posted before, back in about 1971 I discovered that my father had 20% of his entire net worth in Polaroid--and 25% of his investment porfolio. This was when Polaroid was at about 140. I badgered him, and his bank advisors told him not to sell. I finally talked him into dumping it at prices between 105 and 95. I think it hit 17. And that was capital that he and my mother were going to have to live on. He died in the middle of the 1973-74 crash. The bank was delighted at the reduction in his estate taxes--they seemed to expect to be congratulated because they had saved the family so much on estate taxes because they could value the stocks at what they were worth six months after his death. Naturally I had not been able to persuade them to sell any before they had declined. I do have to give them credit for not doing anything after that. Until 1987. When, again, they refused to sell anything before the crash. But there was no point in trying to take legal action. "Prudent man rule": they were just doing what everyone else was doing. That's considered prudence. Which is usually is: if everyone else drives on the right-hand side of the road, you had best do so too. And doing what everyone else does prudently keeps the trust departments in business.