Paul Wilczynski's Observations

Social Security revamp supporter lost a ton on investments

According to The Cunning Realist, there's a promoter of Bush's vision of a New Social Security System who knows one thing personally: it's not hard to lose a ton of money managing your own investments.

Over the past few months, several financial industry pundits have been highly visible in the print and television media promoting the President's vision on this issue. One of them is named Don Luskin. I've seen him repeatedly on a variety of business and political talk shows; he's also a prolific writer about this issue. When I first saw Luskin on television a few months ago forcefully advocating private accounts, I did a double-take. The last time I remembered seeing or hearing about him previously was several years ago, but I did not remember much about him. A fast internet search brought it all back in a few seconds. For those not familiar with Luskin's past, in 1999 he started a mutual fund firm called MetaMarkets.com. The results were ugly; the company's two funds quickly lost a shocking percentage of investor funds, and had to be shuttered. One post-mortem appears here.

Thanks to Oliver Willis for pointing this one out.

posted by Paul Wilczynski @ 8:59 AM