LETTERS

You like us! You like us!

I have been a certified financial planner for 10 years and subscribe to every industry publication available. I must say: Yours is terrific.

The news is real, timely and important. Thanks for all your efforts. And please keep up the great work.

Todd Taskey

President

Solutions Planning Group Inc.

Bethesda, Md.

Then again…

The Dow Jones Newswires ad in the Oct. 20 and Nov. 4 issues of InvestmentNews is in unbelievably bad taste.

Nuns have long and deservedly drawn the public’s admiration and respect. To portray someone in such a negative, unattractive manner is disgraceful. This would be equally true whether the person were Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist or what-have-you.

It is difficult for me to imagine a major corporation like Dow Jones & Co. displaying such insensitivity and irresponsibility. And don’t you folks at InvestmentNews have the guts to stand up and be counted when an advertiser is so far off base?

Please . . . don’t give me some drivel about “censorship.”

Thomas V. Lynch

President

Planned Giving Systems Inc.

Minneapolis, Minn.

…and again…

As a third-generation graduate of a parochial school conducted by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, I regard this gratuitous insult to women who have devoted their lives to the elementary, secondary and college education of millions of American men and women as utterly contemptible.

“Sister” is portrayed as wearing what appear to be silver rosary beads around her neck.

Clearly, the creators of this advertising (if such a noble word as “creator” can be used to describe such an ignoble effort) decided to take another cheap shot at Roman Catholic religious practice.

Would such an advertisement appear in your publication if the object of the lampoon had been the Lubavitcher Rebbe or the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.? I doubt it very much.

A final note: You bigots are about 30 years out of date, as usual. Nuns haven’t dressed like that since th
e end of the Second Vatican Council.

I look forward to reading a prominently positioned apology in your next edition.

Joseph P. Boyle

Beverly, Mass.

…and yet again

The Nov. 3 issue of your publication is enclosed, with the Dow Jones Newswires ad. Please remove my name from your mailing list and instruct your circulation people to remove me as a prospective subscriber.

John J. Godfrey

Registered representative

Commonwealth Equity Services Inc.

Gorham, Maine

We’re Number 1 in consolidation

Your Oct. 20 article on Union Bank of California quotes a bank official saying they are “the first on the West Coast” to consolidate their trust and private financial services departments.

Well, not exactly.

Wells Fargo Bank in 1994 completed the consolidation of its trust, private banking and investment management services into its Private Client Services Group. Following this reorganization, we added our full brokerage section to Private Client Services in 1996.

As the West’s oldest and largest trustee, Wells Fargo has been a pioneer in investment management services. We trace our trust experience to the 1850s, and our financial services also runs deep. We have been managing client assets since 1992, and today our portfolio managers actively manage more than $56 billion in assets for high-net-worth investors.

While other financial institutions may wish they were first, Wells Fargo still is first. Thought you’d like to know.

Robert L. Roszkos

Senior vice president and regional managing director

Wells Fargo

Los Angeles

Be fish or fowl, CPAs and CFPs

I read with interest accountant William J. Goldberg’s Nov. 17 letter, which seemed to suggest that a financial planner first become a certified public accountant then a certified financial planner.

These are separate and distinct professions. Qualified accountants have a long way to go to become competent financial planners, and vice versa.

Both professions require extensive education and experience to develop the required
level of competence to properly serve clients. The decision to become either an accountant or a financial planner should first be made. After that, become a CPA or a CFP based upon the career choice made. Otherwise, we are likely to become frustrated and mediocre, or worse, engaged in two different professions.

Mr. Goldberg also asserted that CPAs have “for many decades” provided financial planning to their clientele. The mainstay of most Main Street accounting firms has been the preparation of after-the-fact financial statements and income tax returns. Although these services are vital, they can hardly be characterized as financial planning.

Apparently, the Big 6 and other national accounting firms have not been engaged in the providing of financial planning services “for many decades” either — read Page 1 of that very issue of InvestmentNews (“SEC Gives Break to Big 6”). Before 1980, most financial planning services were provided by CLUs, not CPAs, not CFPs (No, I am not nor have I ever been a chartered life underwriter.)

Finally, of the 7,000 personal financial specialists, or PFSs, accredited through the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 4,600 entered on the strength of their CFP designation. (AICPA opened the window that allowed those who had earned the CFP designation to become PFSs if all other requirements had been satisfied.) Only 2,000 have gone through the process described by Mr. Goldberg.

The examination and administration process for the PFS designation is no different from that of the CFP designation, except that AICPA administers the PFS exam and the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards administers the CFP exam. Indeed, the CPA exam is under the auspices of each of the states. This is not true with respect to the PFS program.

The Colonel said it best: “Do one thing and do it well. If you are going to fry chicken, fry chicken.”

Mike Creasman

Certified public accountant

Asheville, N.C.