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To: Win Smith who wrote (99)	11/24/2002 8:36:08 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 603

Washington Insider, but Wall St. Pariah nytimes.com BY almost any measure, Charles R. Schwab should be a hero on Wall Street. He made himself a billionaire a few times over by starting a brokerage firm and building it into a financial powerhouse whose low-priced Internet trading service helped fuel the boom of the late 1990's. This year, as disillusioned investors fled the market, it was Mr. Schwab who planted ideas with President Bush that might bring them back. At least among politicians in Washington, he is receiving credit for proposals to reduce taxes on dividends and to increase the allowable deductions for investment losses, measures that have taken root with some Republican lawmakers and that may well blossom into breaks for investors next year. But despite his impressive résumé and close connection to the Bush administration, Mr. Schwab is less popular than ever among his peers. He may be even more disliked on Wall Street than Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, who has vilified investment bankers, stock analysts and the executives who employ them. Some senior executives of other brokerage firms cannot contain their rage at the mere mention of Mr. Schwab's name. His repeated denouncements of the conflicts of interest at other big brokerage firms and his more-ethical-than-thou pronouncements have fanned the flames. When the microphones are turned off, top officials of competing firms call Mr. Schwab's behavior "disingenuous" at best, "parasitic" at worst. If Mr. Schwab, 65, were to retire now — he said last week that he had no intention of quitting anytime soon — he might be remembered most by his competitors not for his accomplishments but for a single phrase: "Let's put some lipstick on this pig." . . .