|
|
|
|
 HelloReturn to index of stories... |
Hello and welcome. I'm Mike Nikitas from NECN, New England Cable News - your guest host for NH Outlook. |
| Preshow #1 mutual Return to index of stories... |
In this edition, THE MUTUAL FUND SCANDAL AND HOW IT MAY AFFECT THE AVERAGE INVESTOR. |
| Preshow #2 fish Return to index of stories... |
And later, some history and perspective on the new groundish rules under debate. The recommendation could change the face of the local commercial fishing industry. |
| Intro Mutual Fund Return to index of stories... |
BUT FIRST. THE BALLOONING MUTUAL FUND SCANDAL STRUCK ANOTHER COMPANY. PRUDENTIAL SECURITIES IN BOSTON. ON TUESDAY. MASSACHUSETTS AND FEDERAL REGULATORS FILED CIVIL CHARGES AGAINST FORMER PRUDENTIAL BROKERS AND BRANCH MANAGERS. IT WAS JUST LAST WEEK THAT REGULATORS TOOK SIMILAR ACTION AGAINST PUTNAM INVESTMENTS, ALSO BASED IN BOSTON. THE ACCUSATION IS THAT MUTUAL FUND MANAGERS AND BROKERS USED EITHER ILLEGAL OR UNETHICAL PRACTICES TO LINE THEIR POCKETS AT THE EXPENSE OF INVESTORS. AND THERE ARE A LOT OF INVESTORS OUT THERE. HALF OF ALL AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS HAVE MONEY IN MUTUAL FUNDS. TO THE TUNE OF 7-TRILLION DOLLARS. CONGRESS STARTED HEARINGS ON THE MUTUAL FUND SCANDAL TODAY. WE'LL HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF MUTUAL FUNDS IN A MOMENT. BUT FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND. CNN'S ALAN CHERNOFF REPORTS, THE SCANDAL HAS SMALL INVESTORS NERVOUS. |
| Intro Discussion Return to index of stories... |
Here to talk about the effects of mutual fund fraud is Mark Connolly - New Hampshire State Director of Securities Regulation. Thanks for being here, Mark. |
| Discussion 1 Return to index of stories... |
scrushy you were involved in the nh settlements involving tyco. you probably know the mindset of guys like this as well as anyone. why do these guys think they can get away with this magnitude of ripoff? new law? what is it? what is the intent? they got him using an electronic bracelet? can they get him to give up all this property? do laws like this have any prventive effect? or is human greed just too powerful? |
| Intro Scrushy Return to index of stories... |
Tuesday, the US Justice Department announced an indictment on former HealthSouth C-E-O Richard Scrushy. And tonight, he's out on ten million dollars bail. Scrushy faces 85 counts, including conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The Government claims scrushy and other Healthsouth officers used illegal means to prop up the company's stock. They're also accused of hiding Healthsouth's real performance, and enhancing their own holdings of stocks and options. They say Scrushy used fraud to support a wildly lavish lifestyle. |
| Tag Scrushy Return to index of stories... |
Scrushy denies any wrongdoing. If convicted, he could face up to 650 years in prison and 36-million dollars in fines. The Government believes healthsouth inflated earnings and assets by at least two-point-five billion dollars since 1994. |
| Intro Fishing Return to index of stories... |
Finally, the New England Fishery Management Council opened a three-day meeting today to make plans for rebuilding stocks of cod, haddock, flounder and other groundfish. For the past 4 years the stocks have been declared "overfished" and there's a federal law requiring restoration within 10 years. There are several different plans being considered. Chip Neal looks at the history of this troubled industry. |
| Fishing History Return to index of stories... |
Fishing History - 23:10 David Goethal fisherman What I'm getting at here, is over 40 years, this appears to be an incredibly stable fishery. That despite mesh sizes, despite changes in fishing patterns, has produced on average, 2260 tons a year over 42 years. Now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it is 95% overfished and we've got to get to levels approaching zero. Something is wrong here, gentlemen. Track - This is a group of fishermen at a fisheries management hearing back in September. They were testifying about the impacts of new Amendment 13 fishing regulations scheduled to go into effect soon. I'm Tony Marquis, I'm president of the Portsmouth Fish Co-op, and, uh, I was looking at your chart there, and I was noticing that you showed, like, 95 million pounds of fish landed last year, and you're showing 200-something million pounds of fish are going to be landed in the year 2006 or something like that. How is this fish all going to be landed, and how is it going to go up when the boats can't even go out that many days? The next question is, is where are the boats going to be able to take the fish out, where is the whole industry going to end up, because what's going to happen here the way this is looking to me, is that, uh, there's going to be no more businesses left that can handle the fish, because we're in a situation now where we're just hanging on by our teeth, and if you go and cut us any more days Track - These commercial fishermen may not be aware of it but their concerns echo the concerns of fishermen back in the 1600's Jeff Bolster UNH - The earliest regulations in New England were regarding the fishery that we know of were limitations on the mackerel catch in 1660, so that's within 40 years of the arrival of the Pilgrims. We have the united colonies of New England limiting the catch of mackerel, and by the 1670s we have the Plymouth plantation restricting the take of spawning mackerel. So there was already a sensibility, an environmental sensibility in the 1670s that there should be some limitations. 14:33 Ellen Goethal . A lot of the economic analysis, which was done well, does not take into account the small boat fleet that we have, and where in any of the amendment choices the New Hampshire fleet will be able to fish. And it would be very helpful if we could get statistics… Jeff Bolster UNH - There's a long history of fishermen actually being the instigators of restrictions in the fishery, and there's a long history of fishermen themselves being concerned with the future of the resource Jeff Bolster - There really weren't any regulations about the ocean fisheries until the first one in the 1880s, when the US Congress passed the first federal fishing regulation in American history that was to limit the catch of spawning mackerel to reduce the catch of mackerel in the spring. That was because the mackerel populations had been fished very hard in the preceding decades, and the catches had gone up, up, up, and then there had been a crash and they had collapsed, and fishermen themselves had petitioned for restrictions. They wanted to look to the future to guarantee the fishery. Track - Changes in gear sparked much of the controversy in the mid 1800's. Jeff - The first real modernization of gear in the cod fishery was in the 1850s when fishermen changed from handlining from over the rail of their own schooner or boat to setting out long lines which they called tub trawls from smaller rowboats. That increased the footprint, the area in which they could fish dramatically. Each man went from tending two or maybe four hooks to tending several hundred hooks. That's in the 1850s. We have some pretty good evidence about how that dramatically changed catches and how it increased the takes of fish. Track - the changes in gear didn't stop there. In fact the gear is still evolving and being discussed today. Jeff - But the next change in gear was the one hat was even more dramatic, that was at the turn of the century, 1900, 1910 with the introduction of otter trawls. Otter trawls are big nets that are towed behind the boat, more modern fishing gear, and instead of having a hook that sits there and fish come to it, you're now talking about a net that gets towed through the water to come to the fish. A lot of traditional fishermen complained that these otter trawls disturbed the bottom and that they were going to catch spawning fish and they were going to catch too many fish. Obviously a big net is much less selective than a couple of hooks. Track - The debates over gear caused a great deal of tension between the fishermen. But did not involve scientists and the government agencies until the 1870"s with the creation of the state and federal fish commissions which were basically fishermen friendly. Jeff - The scientists were really on the side of the fishermen for a very long time. The idea was that they were all in this together, fishermen were hoping that scientists could help them with declining catches, or at least their perception of declining catches. Most scientists at the time, Spencer Baird was the first prominent American fisheries scientist, in the next generation Henry Bigelow was very active in the Gulf of Maine here. Spencer Baird certainly didn't think that anything that people could do would diminish the supply of ocean fish. Georffrey Smith Ocean Conservancy Portland #2 26:30 We believe that overfishing continues to be a serious problem to the overall health of the ocean ecosystem in New England and also to fishing communities. Many will point to the recent improvements in groundfish stocks, and say that we don't need any more restrictions because things are getting better. While we recognize that some stocks have shown improvement since the mid-1990s, it is clear to us that we still have a long way to go to restore these stocks to healthy sustainable levels. Jeff - …for a very long time, in the 1950s and the 1960s, scientists thought that their discipline , oceanography, was going to help solve the world's food crisis, and that they were going to be in league with the fishermen to help save the world. … The real turning point in the state of the American fisheries is sort of a two-part turning point in my lifetime and certainly in the lifetimes of many of the viewers. In the 1960s, 1961 really, foreign fleets arrived in large numbers off the coast of New England, and began to fish with very sophisticated factory trawler ships right close to the shore. Americans were out there in these little mom-and-pop operated wooden side-trawler boats, looking at the biggest most modern freezer factory trawlers with a Russian flag or a Polish flag or a Spanish flag, and these ships were vacuuming the fish from the coast of New England. That went on through the 60s and into the 70s and a lot of local fishermen were justifiably very, very angry. Jeff - 1976, the US Congress passed the Magnusen Fisheries Conservation Management Act with the explicit goal of Americanizing the fishery - driving the foreigners out, imposing a 200 mile limit and putting Americans in charge of the fishery. Track - but the government did not make sure the resource was sustainable Jeff - Part of that Act set up eight regional councils to manage US fishery resources. One of those is the New England regional council. The councils at that time had 17 seats on them, and the seats were political appointments and almost all of the seats went to people in the fishing industry. There weren't any scientists to start with, there weren't any environmental advocates to start with, there weren't any housewives or schoolteachers, it was people in the fishing industry, they were the ones that knew about fishing. Classic case of sometimes setting the fox to guard the henhouse. At this point marine scientists who had already been concerned, through the 70s their concern had been growing because of the way that the foreign fleets had hit the fish so hard, now the American fleets are hitting the fish hard and there's no real political mechanism to stop it, because the council is really in charge of the industry is people who are vested in the fishery. So its really in the late 1970s but it doesn't come to sort of a real crisis or public friction in the mid 1980s when scientists are saying we're catching too many fish, when fishermen for the first time in decades feel their finally making some money, and they continue to fish. When Magnusen was passed in 1976, it charged regional councils to devise management plans for the resources. Over time, government scientists challenged local fishermen, or the fisheries councils in the 1980s. There was then a lawsuit in 1991 by the CLF that forced the NMFS to define overfishing and to take steps to remedy it. So what we've had for decade now is a number of Amendments to the management plan. Track - In 2002 the Conservation Law Foundation won a court order requiring the National Marine Fisheries Service to more to protect the fisheries. Nancy Girard CLF May 2002 OL 61 - We filed the suit because the National Marine Fisheries Service was not abiding by the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996. Our suit alleged that the National Marine Fisheries Service was not doing its job. The judge agreed. This suit is against the regulators, not the fishermen. 21:50 #1 Peter Kendall Rye fisherman .I mean, uh, I mean, we keep chasing our tail, you know, we're gonna, you keep saying we're gonna get economic benefit sometime, but in 2008 we could be doing this again, we could be looking at biomass targets that have increased again that we need to get to. Jeff - The management plan stipulates such things as days at sea, number of days that can be fished, mesh size, quotas, closed areas, all sorts of regulations that affect the shape of the fishery. So what Amendment 13 will do is it will further modify the management plan that is currently being used to manage the New England resource. Craig Pendleton fisherman and director of Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance #2 4:20 We are deeply concerned about the impacts of the proposed fishing regulations, known as Amendment 13. Visual: show black flags flying, drifting boat in harbor, end showing Jeff? Jeff - Amendment 13 is going to have some very negative economic ramifications for some real flesh and blood people. There are people who are fishing today and making a living at fishing who are not going to be able to do that when Amendment 13 passes, at least not legally. We sell 50 to 60 thousands gallons of a fuel a month. And it's just not the pleasure boats we service. Everybody, anybody who wants to come in, we seem to take care of them. We also have 5 to 6 thousand dollar a week payroll, which we employ 12 to 13 people. These people will all be gone if this Amendment 13 steps in. I'm not a fisherman, I'm a businessman, but I would sit there and tell you unequivocally that if Amendment 13 goes through the way it is it is just going to be a complete devastation for shoreside facilities. Track - As we have seen regulations are certainly nothing new to the fishing industry. But the people fighting for those regulations has certainly changed over time. From fishermen petitioning the government to protect their stocks, to fishermen and scientists working together to increase the fish stocks, to an embittered battle with lines clearly drawn between the scientists, government agencies and fishermen, the industry has been anything but stagnant. Tag On Nov 6, the New England Fisheries Management Council will present their recommendations for the next round of regulations to the National Marine Fisheries Service |
| Tag Fishing History Return to index of stories... |
A FINAL DECISION ON THE NEW RULES MUST BE MADE BY MAY. REGARDLESS OF THAT DECISION, SOME NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATORS HAVE THEIR ONLY PLANS. THEY'VE FILED A BILL CALLED THE "NEW HAMPSHIRE FREEDOM TO FISH ACT." HOUSE BILL 23-20 WOULD ESTABLISH STATE REQUIREMENTS FOR "NO FISHING ZONES." THE BILL WOULD PRIMARILY BENEFIT THE RECREATIONAL FISHING INDUSTRY. |
| Web Pointer Return to index of stories... |
For more information on our program and links to our guests and interviews, connect with us on-line at nhptv.org. Join our online discussion and tell us what's on your mind. You can also find streaming video of all our broadcasts. |
| Tomorrow Return to index of stories... |
On the next New Hampshire Outlook - the one year anniversary of Governor Craig Benson's election. We'll spend some time with the Governor and see what he's accomplished so far, and what he'd like to accomplish in the future. |
| Goodnight Return to index of stories... |
We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. |
| founders Return to index of stories... |
Thanks to our founding sponsors who have provided major funding for the production of New Hampshire Outlook: New Hampshire Charitable Foundation Public Service of New Hampshire Stratford Foundation |
| Tonight 10:00 Return to index of stories... |
Tonight on New Hampshire Outlook. It's the one year anniversary of Governor Craig Benson's election. We'll see what he's accomplished. and learn his plans for the future. That's tonight at 10:00 only on Outlook. |
| key: economy / business Return to index of stories... |
NEW HAMPSHIRE OUTLOOK Air Date/Time: 11/04/03 22:00 HOST: Mike Nikitas Length: 10:00 minutes In this edition of New Hampshire Outlook, NHPTV's nightly news magazine, the mutual fund scandal and how it may affect the average investor. And some history and perspective on the new groundish rules under debate. The recommendation could change the face of the local commercial fishing industry. The ballooning mutual fund scandal struck another company. Prudential securities in Boston on Tuesday. Massachusetts and federal regulators filed civil charges against former Prudential brokers and branch managers. It was just last week that regulators took similar action against Putnam investments, also based in Boston. The accusation is that mutual fund managers and brokers used either illegal or unethical practices to line their pockets at the expense of investors. And there are a lot of investors out there. Half of all American households have money in mutual funds. To the tune of 7 trillion dollars. Congress started hearings on the mutual fund scandal today. NH Outlook had a discussion about the future of mutual funds in the studio. The scandal has small investors nervous. Tuesday, the US Justice Department announced an indictment on former HealthSouth C-E-O Richard Scrushy. And tonight, he's out on ten million dollars bail.Scrushy faces 85 counts, including conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. The Government claims scrushy and other Healthsouth officers used illegal means to prop up the company's stock. They're also accused of hiding Healthsouth's real performance, and enhancing their own holdings of stocks and options. They say Scrushy used fraud to support a wildly lavish lifestyle. PRODUCER/REPORTER: Mike Nikitas, Allan Chernoff NAME OF PARTICIPANTS: Tom Vail\Architect, Stephen Cutler\SEC Enforcement Director, Eliot Spitzer\New York Attorney General, \Mark Everson\IRS Commissioner |
| key: environment Return to index of stories... |
NEW HAMPSHIRE OUTLOOK Air Date/Time: 11/04/03 22:00 HOST: Mike Nikitas Length: 12:00 minutes In this edition of New Hampshire Outlook, NHPTV's nightly news magazine, the mutual fund scandal and how it may effect the average investor. And some history and perspective on the new groundish rules under debate. The recommendation could change the face of the local commercial fishing industry. Finally, the New England Fishery Management Council opened a three-day meeting today to make plans for rebuilding stocks of cod, haddock, flounder and other groundfish. For the past 4 years the stocks have been declared "overfished" and there's a federal law requiring restoration within 10 years. There are several different plans being considered. PRODUCER/REPORTER: Chip Neal NAME OF PARTICIPANTS: David Goethal\Hampton Fisherman, Tony Marquis\Pres. Portsmouth Fish Coop, Jeff Bolster\UNH History, Geoffrey Smith\Ocean Conservancy, Portland, \Nancy Girard\Conservation Law Foundation, NH, Peter Kendall\Rye Fisherman, Craig Pendleton\Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, Tony Marquis\Pres. Portsmouth Fish Coop, Mike Richardson\New England Marine Industrial |
| WEB PROMO Return to index of stories... |
Tonight on New Hampshire Outlook. . Tonight at 10pm on New Hampshire Public Television. |