Archer County Advocate (Holliday, Tex.), Vol. 4, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 22, 2007 Page: 4 of 20
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4
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Capitol
Comment
U.S. SENATOR
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON
Losing Latin America
Archer County Advocate
Financial Focus
......
Grady R. Schenk, Jr.
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How to Choose a Financial Advisor
When President Bush em-
barked on his recent five-nation
tour of Latin America, he entered
a region that has become more
important to our national secu-
rity than at any point since the
Cold War. Back then, Latin
America was a vital front in the
fight against communism, and if
recent events are any guide, it
could become equally important
in the war on terror.
A fresh wave of
authoritarianism - fueled by pet-
rodollars, populism and anti-
Americanism - has cast a dark
cloud over the future of freedom
in our hemisphere. In order to
deal with this emerging threat,
we need to dust off the Cold War
playbook and become increas-
ingly active in helping our
friends to the south.
The problem starts (but
doesn’t end) in Venezuela, a na-
tion that once enjoyed a 50-year
democratic tradition, but is now
in the early stages of a dictator-
ship. Venezuela’s messianic
president, Hugo Chavez, has ba-
sically become a power unto
himself. Earlier this year,
elected representatives abdicated
their responsibility and gave the
Venezuelan leader the sweeping
power to rule by decree for 18
months so he can impose sweep-
ing economic, social and politi-
cal change.
These dictatorial powers
would be alarming in anyone’s
hands, but they’re particularly
dangerous in the hands of Mr.
Chavez. The strongman rules an
oil-rich nation that exports 1.1
million barrels of oil to the
United States per day, which
amounts to 14 percent of our to-
tal oil imports. Mr. Chavez has
already colluded with other
OPEC nations to raise oil prices,
and when he nationalizes multi-
billion dollar crude projects in
the Orinoco Belt, there’s a risk
that prices could jump again.
This could have a severe
impact on the pocketbooks of
American families and small
businesses. According to some
economists, every time oil prices
rise by 10 percent, on average
150,000 Americans lose their
jobs. Mr. Chavez has used his
nation’s windfall oil profits to
buy political support at home and
stir trouble abroad. He has said
that Venezuela has a “strong oil
card to play on the geopolitical
stage” «and “it is a card that we
are going to play with toughness
against the toughest country in
the world, the United States.”
In his struggle against U.S.
“imperialism,” Mr. Chavez has
found a useful ally in the world’s
largest state sponsor of terrorism
- the government of Iran. He is
one of the few leaders to publicly
support Iran’s nuclear weapons
program, and the Iranian
mullahs have rewarded Mr.
Chavez’s friendship with lucra-
tive contracts, including the
transfer of Iranian professionals
and technologies to Venezuela.
In January, Mr. Chavez and Ira-
nian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad revealed plans for
a $2 billion joint fund, part of
which will be used as a “mecha-
nism for liberation” against
American allies. This could help
achieve Mr. Chavez’s vision,
shared in an earlier meeting with
Mr. Ahmadinejad, when he said,
“Let’s save the human race; let’s
finish off the U.S. empire.”
Mr. Chavez has grown
bolder by interfering in the elec-
tions of several Latin American
countries, and his brand of revo-
lutionary politics has made gains
in some of them. Bolivia’s newly
elected president, Evo Morales,
has nationalized the energy in-
dustry, rewritten the constitution
and promised to work with Mr.
Chavez and Cuban dictator Fi-
del Castro to form an “Axis of
Good” to oppose the United
States.
Perhaps most ominously,
the former Soviet client Daniel
Ortega has returned to the presi-
dency of Nicaragua. During the
1980s, Mr. Ortega ruled his
country with an iron fist until
U.S.-backed freedom fighters
ousted him from power.
Nicaragua’s democracy pros-
pered for the next 16 years, but
now he is back. In response to
the Ortega victory, Mr. Chavez
chanted “long live the Sandinista
revolution!” Then, in his first
week as president, Mr. Ortega
met with Iran’s Mr.
Ahmadinejad, and told the press
that Nicaragua and Iran “share
common interests and [have
common] enemies.”
Left unchecked, Messrs.
Ahmadinejad and Chavez could
be the Khrushchev-Castro tan-
dem of the early 21st century,
funneling arms, money and pro-
paganda to Latin America, and
endangering that region’s frag-
ile democracies and volatile
economies. If these two pariahs
succeed, the next terrorist train-
ing camp could shift from the
Middle East to America’s door-
step.
We need to face reality and
confront this threat head-on. At
the pinnacle of the Cold War,
Ronald Reagan seized the initia-
tive and repulsed Soviet efforts
to set up camp in our hemi-
sphere. The Gipper’s leadership
should serve, as a model in
thwarting the advance of tyranny
and terrorism in our times.
We should build new
bridges to our friends in the re-
gion - pressing forward on free
trade, development aid, military
cooperation and exchange pro-
grams. Let’s take the necessary
steps today, so tomorrow we
won’t have to ask: “Who lost
Latin America?”
HI ^MEMBER
Tp-4 2007
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
If you’re like most people,
you have a variety' of financial
goals: college for your children,
a comfortable retirement, a va-
cation home and so on. You
might be able to achieve all these
goals on your own - but you will
likely find it a lot easier if you
get a little help from a financial
advisor. But how do you choose
the right one? For starters, ask
your friends, relatives and co-
workers whom they use. Then
interview some of the people
they recommend. What ques-
tions should you ask at such an
interview? Consider these: •
What are your qualifications?
Make sure you are talking to
someone who, at a minimum,
has all the required licenses for
selling securities. •
What type of experience do you
have? Find out how long some-
one has been a financial advisor,
but don’t rule out a person with
only a limited amount of experi-
ence - a new financial advisor
frequently brings a great deal of
enthusiasm to his or her work.
A financial advisor’s longevity
is less important than whether
he or she has had experience
working with someone like you
- someone in your financial situ-
ation, with your goals and your
investment preferences. •
What is your investment philoso-
phy? Try to learn if someone fa-
vors a specific style of investing
or a particular class of invest-
ments. These styles or classes
may be well-suited for some in-
vestors but inappropriate for oth-
ers. If you believe the person
you’re talking to has a “one size
fits all” mentality, you might
want to look elsewhere. • How
will you communicate with me?
Financial advisors run their busi-
ness in different ways, so there’s
no one “right” way of communi-
cating with clients. However, you
need to feel comfortable that
someone will always be available
to answer your questions, review
your accounts, evaluate your situ-
ation and make appropriate rec-
ommendations. If you are inter-
viewing someone who has a part-
ner or an assistant, find out
whom you are likely to be com-
municating with, should you de-
cide to become a client. •
What services do you provide?
Find out just how a prospective
financial advisor can help you.
For example, some people sell
investments only, while others
offer investments and insurance.
Keep in mind, though, that you
don’t need to be a “one-stop”
shopper when it comes to obtain-
ing a wide range of services. In
fact, you might want to ask a pro-
spective financial advisor if he
or she has developed working re-
lationships with legal and tax ad-
visors. This “team” approach can
be quite beneficial to you, espe-
cially when you get into the area
of estate planning. • How
are you paid? Financial advisors
get paid in several different
ways: fees, commissions, salary
or some combination of these
methods. One way isn’t neces-
sarily any “better” than another,
from your point of view, but you
should have a clear understand-
ing of what type of compensa-
tion is being used. Your associa-
tion with a financial advisor is
one of the most important busi-
ness relationships you’ll ever
have, so make sure it’s a good
one - right from the start.
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Stevens, Charlotte. Archer County Advocate (Holliday, Tex.), Vol. 4, No. 50, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 22, 2007, newspaper, March 22, 2007; Holliday, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth829073/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Archer Public Library.