Wednesday, May 03, 2006

The Rukeyser legacy

Louis Rukeyser died yesterday. If Ronald Reagan was "The Great Communicator" in the White House, Lou was surely The Great Communicator of Wall Street (from the safe distance of Owings Mills, MD).

All who wish to communicate effectively about investing and wealth management can learn from Lou's success on TV and the lecture circuit. His AP obituary quotes a primary lesson:

"We have in America a bad tendency that things have to be either serious or fun. Whereas in real life, this isn't true. The teachers we all remember in high school and college were not the ones who put us to sleep."

We'll miss Lou's irreverence. Recently, for instance, a Member of Congress had an idea for a really cool Flat Tax. His flat tax would be different, he said, because it would have three progressive tax rates!

With Lou gone, who will give such creativity the attention it deserves?

Lou also made TV starlets out of people we would not have gotten to know otherwise. John Templeton, for instance. And James Grant, whose obituary of Lou is in Tbe New York Times.

2 comments:

Jim Gust said...

Does his estate plan include a trust?

JLM said...

Doesn't everybody's?