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To: Gorak Shep who wrote (2217)	1/26/1999 12:05:00 AM
From: Gorak Shep	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17683

Thomas M. asked me in a private message to elaborate on my previous message regarding Ron Insana's discussion of LTCM today in light of the NYTimes article, apparently by Michael Lewis rather than Abby Schultz, found at the following link: nytimes.com I didn't catch all of Ron's report but I think I saw most of it. In particular, he responded to the following quote from the article: "as one of the fund's partners puts it: 'Virtually no one has called and asked us for the facts. They just believe what they read in the papers.'" Ron harshly disputed this claim stating that both he and David Faber called LTCM numerous times and either got nothing or got promised callbacks that never materialized. Further, Ron said that he was informed at some point that LTCM had lost 50% of its capital. He called LTCM to confirm and was told not only was that not true but the LTCM spokesperson raised the brickbat of a liability suit if he reported such. Consequently, Ron watered down his report not to use the 50% figure but something more general like a significant loss. As it turned out, the 50% figure was pretty much on the money. Naturally, Ron was pretty incensed about how forthright LTCM had not been then and even more so that the above quote was so disingenuous. I hope I've portrayed Ron's position reasonably well. At least I tried to do that.