St. Stanislaus School benefit, 9 to 4 in Kolbe Hall, Adams. Bake sale, snack bar, games, Chinese auctions, money raffle, crafts, and pierogi.
Blackinton Union Church, 1373 Massachusetts Ave., North Adams; 10 to 2. Crafts table, bake sale, Chinese auction, the Christmas table, and kid's grab bag. Lunch $4, $2 kids.
First Congregational Church, North Adams, 9-2.
Nov. 28 Becket Federated Church, Route 8, holiday bazaar from 9-3. Lunch, crafts, baked goods, holiday and other items. Information: Mary Peltier, Parish House, 413-623-5217.
Dec. 5
Holiday Fair at First Congregational Church, 25 Park Place, Lee, from 10 to 3; handcrafted items, raffles, children's shop, bake sale, cut Christmas trees and lunch from 11 to 1. Includes angel-themed goods from SERRV. Information, 413-243-1033 or www.ucc-lee.org.
Dec. 12-13
North Adams Country Club, crafts 9-4; food from That's a Wrap from 11-2. Information: Sheryl Morehouse at 413-822-3329.
Planning a bazaar this season? Submit information to info@iberkshires.com to have it listed here.
We're trying out blogs to offer shorter, easy-to-find news. Let us know what you think.
Send press releases and announcements to info@iberkshires.com. Need to contact someone at iBerkshires? Here's how.
Mammography Dispute The government's issued controversial new guidelines stating that women shouldn't get annual mammograms until age 50, rather than age 40.
iBerkshires will be meeting with local medical experts Monday. Have a question you'd like answered on this issue? Send it info@iberkshires.com with "mammogram" in the subject line.
By Bill Schmick iBerkshires Columnist 05:23PM / Thursday, June 18, 2009
Bill Schmick
In case you missed it, Morgan Stanley took control of rival broker Smith Barney from its former parent Citigroup Inc. two weeks ago. The new venture called Morgan Stanly Smith Barney will now move into first place as the world's largest retail broker with 18,000 financial advisers.
With the stupendous arrogance that only Wall Street brokers can possess, they are hoping that we will forgive and forget that it was they who precipitated the financial crisis in the first place.
Morgan Stanley took out three full pages of ad space in the Wall Street Journal among other publications to crow that now that the financial world is being remade (thanks partly to their own duplicity and greed) they want to offer you and me "thinking and resources to fit the times." Now that they have wiped out trillions of our retirement savings by urging us to stay the course while they went to cash or shorted the markets, they suddenly want to help us make it back, to give us advice on retirement, education, wealth transfer and other financial needs.
Here's an idea: why not start by returning all the money they lost last year in our brokerage accounts.
Now before you take this the wrong way, I am not blaming just Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney. There is plenty of blame to go around. Citigroup, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch (remember them?) Bear Sterns, AIG, Wells Fargo, UBS as well as another 10 or so megafirms blitzed us, and left few survivors. And yet they walk away while we are left holding the bag. The point is that now that we the taxpayers have bailed most of them out, they are using our money to re-invent themselves, to pretend that it was someone else on the other end of the phone telling us to buy and hold. I, for one, will not fall for it. Once burned, shame on you, twice burned shame on me.
In the meantime, while all this fanfare is occurring, several high-ranking Morgan Stanley executives (including a co-president, their controller and principle accounting officer) sold $2.9 million of stock in May. Recently, an ex-trader at Morgan Stanley in the U.K. was banned by financial regulators for "front-running" (using non-public information to trade ahead of his customers). He was the third Morgan employee banned in Great Britain in the last month.
Sure, I know Morgan Stanley employs a great number of people worldwide so why blame them for three bad apples? Because I do not believe that brokers like Morgan Stanley or any of these organizations that sold trillions in toxic assets to us can change its corporate culture in a few short months.
I suggest that before any of you get sucked into this "new era" of reformed brokers you should take a hard look at how they have treated you in the past. There is a great Web site by a local money manager, Berkshire Money Management Inc., which is well worth your time. You can access it via www.FireYourStockBroker.Net.
"There is a lot of incompetence and greed in our industry," Allen Harris, the president and senior investment officer of Massachusetts-based Berkshire Money Management of Pittsfield said, "and it is not just on the national level, here locally we have the same issues. It's time everyone re-examined and reconsidered who is managing your money. Take a look at my Web site and if your adviser falls short, fire him and call us."
Bill Schmick is a licensed investment adviser representative as well as a registered financial consultant who recently joined Berkshire Money Management. All views and opinions expressed by Bill in his columns are strictly his own. Direct your inquiries to him at 1-518-610-1553 or e-mail him at wschmick@fairpoint.net. You can also visit www.afewdollarsmore.com for more of Bill's insight.
Editor: There was a delay between the column and the release announcing his new job, and the column went up first - without the full disclosure. I had planned to link them together but got sidetracked. Blame me, not him.
OK children, I am cutting off comments that are repetitious or simply name-calling. Grow up. If you have a grievance or question of either Mr. Harris or Mr. Schmick, I suggest you contact them personally. They are very easy to get a hold off. So am I: Tammy Daniels, 413-663-3384, Ext. 29. See? We use our real names.
I think the SEC should review his clients accounts to see if he is telling the truth about the returns.
from: Need SEC review
on: 06-27-2009
My, my.
You unsuccessful folks sure like to throw out red herrings to distract from what is important.
I already stated that our client's assets are UP 3.9% over the last 18-months while YOUR client's portfolios are down 50%.
I want to thank all of your for your continued posts. I find you all hilarious and you have provided tons of laughs for everybody at our office. You've been great for morale and for giggles.
But, alas, all good things must come to an end. The novelty of your comments have dissipated so I'll have to allow you few folks to jealously banter amongst yourselves.
Thanks again!
Warm regards,
Allen Harris
from: Allen Harris
on: 06-26-2009
Mr Harris fails to 1)address how much his clients lost in 2008. 2) fails to address how he has "20 years experience" when he is only 36 years old. 3) fails to explain why he had Bill "the Shill" Schmick on his payroll while Bill was writing disparaging articles about Berkshire stock brokers who compete with Harris but failed to tell the readers of tha Advocate or IBerkshires about his payroll relationship with "the Shill" 4) fails to tell us why he says Bill has thirty years experience when Bill's blog say 27 years 5) fails to tell us why he is trying to build his business by putting other people down while exaggerating his results. If Mr. Harris lives in a glass cathedral he should careful. More to come.
from: Truth Seekers
on: 06-25-2009
Hello everybody.
Thank you to all of you brokers for doing two things:
1) Accepting the fact that you are incompetent without offering any resistance to that whatsoever (it proves my claims be correct), and,
2) Being such cowards as to hide behind the anonymity of the internet. Your pseudonyms even further reduce your credibility.
Here are three interesting facts:
a) You let your clients down by losing half of their money over the last 18-months. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
b) From December 31, 2007 to June 24, 2008 our client's assets have grown from $178 million to $184 million (UP 3.9% while the S&P 500 was down 39%).
c) Berkshire Money Management's performance of previous years (including navigating 2001-2002) was so utterly fantastic that I dare not even reveal it as you no-name haters would likely not believe it.
You can hateful and be jealous all you like, but the situation is that clients of Berkshire Money Management are the happiest clients in the world. And, in my opinion, the best clients in the world.
So why don't I retire? There are too many investors in Berkshire County getting bad and incomplete advice from so-called professionals like yourselves. They need to be helped - they need real help. Not you slick sales pitches and false promises.
At this point, the only people commenting on these boards are stock brokers jealous of our success and fearful of losing their clients.
Relax, fellas. You are embarrassing yourselves and your industry.
from: Allen Harris
on: 06-25-2009
Its time for Mr Harris to stop throwing stones at other investment professionals because the fact is that he lost money for his clients last year and has not participated in a meaningful way in the rebound this year. Also, its not ethical to have someone on your payroll writing disparaging articles on other people without telling the readers the truth. I did google Bill "the shill" Schmick!
from: Come Clean Harris
on: 06-25-2009
Mr. Harris,
You asked these brokers to call you and sit down with your for a coffee.
Did any of them call you? It seems as if these brokers are up-in-arms because the truth has been told about how poorly they navigated the collapse of the world economy?
Mr. Harris, are any of these folks giving their real names? Or should we just discredit their comments as obvious fear and jealousy?
from: Terry Brown
on: 06-25-2009
We now learn The "Independent" Schmick was on the Berkshire Money Management payroll when he was writing articles for The Advocate and Iberkshires putting down competitors and promoting Harris at Berkshire Money Manangement!! At least IBerkshires comes clean with its disclosure. Lets see what the Advocate does this week to route out this schill.
from: Al's Scrill
on: 06-22-2009
"Hard Working UBS Broker"
Where are all of these Wall Street losers coming from?
Guess what, UBS, you can work hard and still do a BAD job. How many people did you have to lay off last year because you did such a bad job? You are part of the problem.
There's a difference between work ethic and competence. And there isn't anyone at UBS I would call competent - not after you lost half of your clients' money! You should be ashamed of yourself! Or a least start selling something like used cars instead of stocks.
UBS, Merril, Berkshire, Harris, Schmick - you are all to blame. Who cares if you lost 25% or 75% - you are all incompetent.
from: Don
on: 06-20-2009
The hole is getting deeper and deeper for Schmick and Harris. Keep digging. Both of you seem to be living in glass houses.
from: Hark Working UBS Broker
on: 06-20-2009
"Honest Merrill Broker" - oh, you're the ONE!
Let's face it, all of you Wall Street types are crooks.
Hekk, Merrill Lynch was/is so bad that they got ran out of Pittsfield!
How much money did you make trading your client accounts from a 401k to a 201k?
Buy real estate. And buy it in Pittsfield. A recent article just said that it is the best place to buy in the US.
Or buy gold. Ron Paul has got it right. Let's get rid of the Federal Reserve and get back on the gold standard.
Fire your stock broker?!? I say fire all of Wall Street - and then take back our bailout money!
from: Don
on: 06-20-2009
The article was released several days ago in THE Advocate. Schmick and Harris are digging themselves into a deeper and deeper hole. Schmick is a shill for Berkshire. IBerkshires should be ashamed for rerunning articles from our Advocate.
Editor: We don't "rerun" Advocate articles. Mr. Schmick is a freelance columnist. How and when other media run his columns has nothing to do with iBerkshires. His relationship to Berkshire Money should have been included here and I apologize to both him and our readers.
from: Honest Merrill broker
on: 06-20-2009
Not only is Bill not being honest but neither is Mr. Harris.
"Twenty years"
How old are you Mr. Harris? Maybe in your mid thirties so twenty years ago you would have been a teenager. Not what I call experience.
The fact that you have to stretch the truth shows your character or lack there of.
from: Don
on: 06-20-2009
Bill, Glad you decided to be honest after several people called you on it. Pete
from: honesty
on: 06-19-2009
Hi Bill,
This was my concern. I had a feeling that you were not disclosing your true relationship with Berkshire Money Management.
The funny thing is you are suggesting that people should switch from one of these large investment firms to Berkshire Money Management because of a lack of integrity. You're no different.
You should have been honest and told your readers about your relationship with Berkshire before recommending them.
from: Pete
on: 06-19-2009
It must be nice to know it all and not live in a glass house. Why did you miss the 40 per cent rally over the past three months? Why are you being selective with only disclosing some of your past recommendations? Responsible Retired Merrill Broker ps. most of the brokers and financial planners do great work.
from: market calls
on: 06-19-2009
Dear “Shill for Berkshire”,
I am Allen Harris, the owner of Berkshire Money Management.
It’s great that so many financial professionals read Mr. Schmick’s columns. But it’s not surprising – with 30 years of experience Mr. Schmick certainly can impart knowledge to some of those “greener” folk out there trying to making a living in this volatile industry (I just crossed the 20-year mark, myself).
To your question, the definition of “reputable” is subjective, so I shall allow you to form your own opinion. And I would enjoy helping you form that opinion.
Would you like to meet for a coffee at Café Roots on 66 West Street in Pittsfield? They have great coffee and great food, so I assure you that it would not be a total loss.
My contact information can be found at www.BerkshireMM.com (while there, be sure to click on the flash-graph of our past market calls).
Actually, “Shill for Berkshire”, bring your co-workers. Even better, to all those stock brokers reading (or financial consultants, or wealth managers, or whatever your title might be), please drop me a line. I love “talking shop” and would enjoy doing so with a new and wider audience.
Warm Regards,
Allen Harris
from:
on: 06-19-2009
I will be sending out an official press release later this afternoon but for those readers who have already asked, let me state that I have joined Berkshire Money Management this week as a portfolio manager. Part of the reason I was so attracted to BerkshireMM and its owner, Allen Harris, was the website I discovered and referred to in the above story. He put into words much of the anger and frustration I have been hearing from clients for the past year.
As for any claims that brokers are innocent consider this: In President Obama's regulatory overhaul this week, the administration is demanding that brokers be held to the same standard that Berkshire Money Management (and myself) must uphold. Brokers would be complelled to place their client's interests ahead of their own. Currently, as every broker knows, that is not the case. It appears the President shares some of my own misgivings about this issue.
from: Bill Schmick
on: 06-19-2009
MR Schmick, Most brokers are very responsible and work very hard for their clients. Are you being paid by Berkshire Money Management to put down reputable brokers? Is the owner of Berkshire reputable? From, A responsible broker
from: Shill for Berkshire
on: 06-19-2009
Hi Bill,
I am curious, what is your relationship to Berkshire Money Management?
Are you considering or plan to work with them?
Thanks
Pete
from: Pete
on: 06-19-2009
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