TMI Investments

Your series of slanted articles on TMI will probably end the company and my investment with it. It’s a shameful example of the distorting power of the press.

Your articles were like throwing brickbats at the firefighters while they battle to save your blazing home. These people (TMI) are trying to recover following a serious problem that affects us all, the economic decline of California, statewide real estate value declines, and an insane tax structure that imposes public woes on private landowners.

Make no mistake, I am not pleased with my TMI investments, but then I am also unhappy with SCE, worth less than 50% of its value 12 months ago. My other real estate investments also tanked. Thankfully, my other investments did better. And that is why my broker preached diversification. Anyone who would invest all of their savings in one thing, be it speculative raw land or CDs, is a victim of their own greed. Your story portrays the plaintiffs as poor teachers dependent on pensions now that all their investments are lost. It conveniently overlooks the fact that no one advised them to put everything into TMI.

Only one factor, greed, could do that. Who’s to blame?

Everyday, Merrill Lynch receives nuisance suits without your paper giving them front-page play. No mention in your paper. What’s the point? A newspaper should deal in news, not disgruntled complaints.

ANN DILLREE

Mission Viejo