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Look After Your
Hard-Earned Money

by Bruce Green

It was a night of networking and numbers at the Guild's first-ever Financial Planning Seminar this past November 6th. From young apprentices to retirees, the Bel Age Hotel's "Grand Salon" was filled with a cross section of our members and some significant others. The crowd of about 175 shared a light repast of sandwiches, hors d'oeuvres and leads for work before sitting down for the presentation.

President Donn Cambern welcomed everybody and thanked editors Sidney Wolinsky and Rachel Igel for organizing the event. They then introduced the panel: John Ebey, a senior V.P. at Merrill Lynch, who is a consultant to our Pension Plan and who handles the Editors Guild's investments, gave a clear and concise stock market 101 introduction. He was followed by Harley Blankenship, Executive Administrative Director of the Pension Plan.

Financial Planning Seminar panelist Harley Blankenship answers individual questions about the Motion Picture Industry Pension Plan after the main event.

He explained how our two plans work and told of coming changes including a reduction to five years before a member is vested. He also gave out the number (1-800-772-1213) for the Social Security Administration and advised people to call for the form that will tell you what your benefits will be upon retirement based on monies earned to date.

Financial Planner Margie Mullen gave an informative and sometimes humorous presentation. She gave out phone numbers for organizations that can lead you to reputable and certified financial planners (1-800-322-4237 and 1-888-333-6659) and cautioned that anyone can say they are a planner so to choose wisely. She was followed by a specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law, attorney Janice Fogg who went over her area of expertise and scared anyone in the audience who doesn't have a will drawn up. Finally, highly regarded and often quoted CPA Larry Stern went over various tax deferred saving options. These included the new 1998 Roth IRA which seemed particularly relevant to many audience members. Larry Stern also discussed the pros and cons of editors owning and renting equipment and warned of the pitfalls of incorporating. He said that you can expect to pay a minimum of $8,000 a year in payroll taxes and administrative charges. To the disappointment of some, he advised against incorporating unless you have been making over $150,000.00 a year and expect that to continue.

After the presentation, audience members questioned the panel on everything from Term Insurance to the advisability of following the Motley Fool's financial advice, now in the L.A. Times. Rachel and Sidney were careful to encourage panel members to explain the many technical terms used and to clarify the many questions.

An audiotape of the seminar will be available to members -- call the Guild office for details. No hot stock picks were offered.

If you have the RealAudio plug in for your browser, you can listen to the program over the web. (Note that you won't have to wait for the entire audio file to download. RealAudio plays back directly from the server with only a brief wait).

See our Audio Programming page, for more information.

Audio:

Part 1 - Opening Statements by All Panelists (58 min.)

Part 2 - Question & Answer Session (45 min.)

Part 3 - Question & Answer Session continued (35 min.)