We Bermudians tend to suffer from the extremes of a bipolar social syndrome. At times, we’ve committed the national sin of arrogance and self-confidence beyond the realm of financial reality. At other times, the collective we still spend inordinate amounts of energy on our faults, our national insecurities, flagellating ourselves, while beating everyone else up, verbally.

We are at a critical juncture as to what we need to be as a country. We are individually, and collectively, at a turning point decision for who we want to be as a people.

As we head into the end of this decade, it is worthwhile to consider again, where we were, and what we accomplished financially as an international finance centre. There is no need to elaborate on the mistakes that have been made; we know only too well, what those are.

We look to our leaders now to make thoughtful appropriate policy and financial decisions for the good of the country; set the course by a True Star Light and guide us into another era of prosperity for everyone.

I’m just a humble writer and can’t begin to provide illumination on public policy, but I can discourse on financial observations that I have made in writing this weekly column since March 1, 2000. The number has recently toppled over five hundred article mark with those published in Bermuda and in the international press, and most recently, a solicitation from a South African financial journal.

My thanks and gratitude goes out to every reader who has bothered to read them, called me to comment or criticise, sent me emails of encouragement or dismissal, asked for assistance or offered guidance. I have been happy to receive them all because it means topics have stimulated financial dialogue and encouraged personal financial responsibility.

So, my thought was that rather than drone on again about diversification, or some buy and hold investment strategy - after all what can I tell you generically that you have not read countless times before?

Why not talk about real experiences and feedback from real people (all situations completely disguised), where they and I think we are heading from a financial perspective, and end with a New Year Wish List.

Twelve years ago, my husband Paul and I came back to Bermuda to live. First impressions were overwhelming. We were in the middle of the Atlantic, a dot in the ocean, host to a cutting edge insurance industry, operating in high gear. Wow!

It was extraordinary thinking to try to compare this level of financial activity to a comparative land mass and population, in a small New England town. There was no comparison.

On the financial services industry side, there was significant activity, too, although the investment advisory business appeared to be five to 10 years behind the United States. This was apparent when then head of the Bermuda Stock Exchange informed me that I did not need a securities license to sell investment products or provide investment advice in Bermuda.

Keep in mind that the US had more than 70 years of heavy securities regulation and accountability on the legislative books, not that any of it helped much in the last market crash, however.

Investing here in Bermuda for the ordinary person was new, exciting, fashionable, finally affordable, and irresistible. Everyone’s friends were doing it. It was a game.

Capital markets, particularly the United States, Japan were roaring. Remember those incredible gains.

Almost hysteria. Investment clients would call up and fire you because another firm’s mutual fund or stock was getting 80 percent return per year and your fund was only performing at a 25 percent rate. People would call on Monday after weekend parties to put chunks of money in some hot investment. I arrived early one morning at the brokerage firm I worked at to find a highly anxious gentleman hanging off the door like Spiderman. “Where’s my broker”, he says frantically to me. “I need to sell some stock ASAP. “ Sorry, he’s not in yet”, I replied. “He’d better be in soon, I put 60,000 pounds on this penny stock and its dropping like a stone!” Well, you could have dropped a stone in my mouth, I was so taken aback. Never heard what he took for a loss, but you can bet it was substantial.

April of 2000 was still a year or so away!

Documentation was slim to none for many products. In spite of all the fun, although I’ve never considered investing such, there was unease. Mutual fact sheets were copies, sometimes copied from magazines, newspaper ads touted 40 percent annual gains for a single year without mentioning that the prior six years were losses, etc. There was little information on these investments. In those early days, I only saw one company, Orbis Investment Management Limited produce fact sheets comparable to the US professional standards.

Inquiries about a prospectus for a mutual fund were met with blank stares. Fact sheets did not list identifiers (cusip) numbers. It was very hard to find any verifiable detail on security products, although digging on Bloomberg would generally turn things up. Few had access to this large financial institutional product.

Investment advisor fiduciary standards were not defined. There was little or no full disclosure of financial salesperson’s compensation, or the business model philosophy of an investment firm.

No conflicts of interest disclosed, such as additional discounts or extra compensation for selling a specific product.

The people selling the products were hard to define. Who they were, what type of background, qualifications, licensing? One minute an individual was a project manager, next an investment advisor in a highly complex environment. Thus, there seemed to be experience that ranged from none to fully qualified investment professionals, such as Certified Financial Planners™ or Chartered Financial Analysts.

Bermuda was really just embracing the internet in a big way, but mass access to computers for the individual was still lagging. Thinking back, how can you do your job today without one?

It was not entirely negative picture. Everyone was trying; it appeared the industry was in the toddler stage, but stepping determinedly forward.

No one ever cares about background when times are good. Investors often had little understanding of the product that they purchased, where they were personally on a financial basis, what the real net cost was. While, it was hard to ignore the occasional screaming call made to a broker by some poor soul who thought he’d reap instant gains, only to lose all in the market - especially when it was his entire savings, all anyone cared about was, is the market going up?

The suitcase salesmen - my pet peeve resurrected. Muddying the waters, the suitcase salesmen had an easy time of it; flying in, staying for a few days, selling through friends’ networks, using our resources, paying no payroll or any other tax, employing no local residents, and leaving with the suitcase full of money

What were they selling?

Were they licensed by some regulatory body?

Who knew, or thought to ask?

Some were appeared to be legitimate, some were outright fraudsters.

Part 2 real observations and situations feedback from real people - anonymously of course, growth of industry compliance, where we think we are headed, and a New Year’s Financial Wish List.

Martha Harris Myron is an international Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner specialising in tax, estate, and strategic retirement services for Bermuda residents with cross-border and multi-national connections, dual citizens of the US and Bermuda, and US citizens living abroad.

She is the American Citizens Abroad Country Contact for Bermuda and a Masters in Law candidate in International Tax and Finance. For more information, contact martha.myron@gmail.com">martha.myron@gmail.com or 296-3528.