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Investors were blinded by high-yield promises 

On Lou Pearlman, Trans Continental coverage

You have done a terrific job of investigating and exposing Lou Pearlman and his Investment Savings Account. The residents association where I live invested $100,000 through Golden Security Inc. in early 2005 and $50,000 later that summer. Being a shareholder and resident, I was very concerned about the investments, which were not a registered security.

In the original offering by Trans Continental Airlines, it is quoted on the bottom of the transmittal: "The program eligibility for participation has been designed for employees, friends and family members of Trans Continental Companies." The people who invested money should have read it but apparently they were blinded by the promise of high yield and it being so-called "Insured."

It was not until December 2005 that I began to investigate Trans Continental and I came up with the many red flags that you outlined in your recent articles.

It was time to renew the $100,000 investment, so I began talking to and writing to the treasurer.

He was unable to supply me with satisfactory information.

I then wrote to the board members who had originally voted to buy the investment and stated the facts that I had uncovered.

At the February board meeting, they did vote 6-3 not to renew the $100,000 and not to renew the $50,000 when it came due in the summer of 2006.

Ours is a good ending to this story, as we were able to recover all of the money invested. However, if it were not for myself and a couple of other unhappy residents, we would have still been invested in Transcontinental.

Thanks for your good work. It has given credibility to my findings.

Jeanne Corser, Largo

Executives should be paid for performance

Home Depot ousts CEO Jan. 7

Why do we as a society allow company executives to suck the life out of a company and still walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars? What skin does an executive have in a company when he knows that he can walk away at any time with $100-million? I was laid off from a good-paying telecommunications job after 22 years of service, and I was offered four weeks' severance. Maybe these highly paid executives need to have their pay and incentives based on the performance of their company, such as the stock value. Why should they be guaranteed millions whether they perform or not?

Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli walks away with $210-million and yet leaves the company in trouble. What does the average employee receive when they leave a job that they performed well at? Probably nothing! Someone has to stand up and stop this corporate raping by the executives.

Butch Simmons, Tampa

More can be done to help encourage homeownership 

Mortgage insurance tax break makes little sense, column Jan. 7

Though I think Helen Huntley is far too quick to dismiss the benefits from the temporary mortgage insurance tax deduction recently passed by Congress, I fully agree that the new Congress should go farther to promote homeownership.

While this legislation could have been better, we should nonetheless welcome any legislative actions that reduce the cost of homeownership. This is particularly true right now because many analysts are concerned about the potential that home values, which have declined in parts of Florida and other states over the past year, may weaken further. A further slowdown in housing would hurt existing homeowners and taxpayers by further reducing the equity that people use to improve their homes and limiting the addition of new properties to the tax rolls.

Sure, we'd have rather seen Congress pass a comprehensive plan that made the mortgage insurance tax deduction permanent and universal and applied the benefit to everyone who pays it as part of their mortgage. Though it isn't all that we'd have hoped for, the more limited mortgage insurance deduction approved by Congress will make homeownership more affordable for the majority of retirees and low- and middle-income families who purchase a home in 2007. That's an important step forward and, rather than merely complaining that it isn't enough, we are asking members of the House and Senate to make this tax relief permanent and expand it so that all homeowners qualify, regardless of when they purchased their home. We urge Ms. Huntley and St. Petersburg Times readers to do the same.

Bruce N. Hahn, Arlington, Va. President, American Homeowners Foundation

We're losing our land, and now our fruit 

Citrus-eating butterfly could strike Florida Jan. 6

Not to worry. With our continued bowing to developers who are paving over the orange groves and every other piece of available land in spite of the impending water shortage again, there won't be any citrus industry (or much else for that matter) to worry about! Whatever is left, the property taxes and insurance will finish off. Hooray for us!

G. Williams, St. Petersburg

Insurers' trick: profits amid cries of poverty, column Jan. 8

Thank you for your excellent column. I truly believe the message from Florida homeowners has been heard loud and clear in Tallahassee.

State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey

Maybe more competition with help insurance crisis

Just wanted to thank you for your writing about homeowners insurance. It's not only a problem for our family who gets nonrenewed every year, but the whole state and now eastern United States. It needs to be fixed!

I e-mailed the new governor, who has been proactive, with some ideas. Lowering taxes? A federal insurance system? How about not making Citizens Property the most expensive insurer? Maybe good old competition would bring the companies back here.

We moved here from California from about a same sized and aged home, and went from $500 a year to $3,000 for insurance annually and only found one company this year to write it. Worse, our property taxes there were at 1 percent and, due to Proposition 13, will not increase like they do here every year. With the rising value of property, where is the tax money going?

Pam Richards, Palm Harbor

Logic and reason won't work will insurance

Well, there you go again, Trigaux, trying to confuse everybody with logic and reason. It won't work. Years ago there was a book written called Insurance: A Legalized Racket. It was true then and it is true now.

It is exactly like General Motors or Ford saying their Florida operations have nothing to do with national or international operations. I was in the business world 40 years or so, and I know how things work.

Larry Travis, Tarpon Springs

[Last modified January 14, 2007, 01:27:00]