.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

I’m 27 and just got married to Judy, who is 25. We don’t plan (yet) to have children. We each have superb jobs and together we make over $225,000 a year and want to do this as long as possible. My new brother-in-law has been really pushing us very hard to buy a cash-value life insurance ($18,000 annual premium), but we have insurance at work. He’s a hard, pushy salesman, and it’s impossible to shut him up. I’ve sent you the insurance paperwork and ask your advice. Our stockbroker (who says we don’t need that policy) has advised us to keep my recently inherited 12,600 shares of Sun-Times Media, which has crashed to $5. He also wants us to invest $25,000 in T. Rowe Price Telecommunications & Media Fund. Would you please advise us on this, too?

M.C., Joliet, Ill.

Dear M.C.:

Your brother-in-law is pond scum — the slimy, green stuff that blocks sunshine and suffocates the living organisms upon which fish and other life feed. This type of salesman has a dissociative personality that won’t respond to even moderately strong objections. There are only two ways to shut him up: (1) Purchase a policy from him or (2) forcefully cast aspersions on his motive and insult his intelligence with colorful words.

Many agents use charging-cavalry tactics to push high-cost cash-value life policies on couples in their early 20s, arguing that it’s cheaper now than later. And they’re as right as a tax refund. But you’d be as wrong as Corrigan and Custer to do it.

Yes, under some circumstances, with the right policy offered by the right insurer, cash-value life can make sense. However, for you folks this policy makes as much sense as sucking concrete through a straw. Meanwhile, I tossed that 17-page insurance proposal he gave you; it’s pure garbage!

My good friend Justin Kase suggests that the primary reason to own life insurance is to protect your wife and children. If you have a spouse and kids, then you should own a heap of life insurance. And the cheapest way to have this protection is to purchase a “term life” policy, which provides a death benefit and nothing more.

The cash value policy this ding-dong wants to sell you has a death benefit and an investment account. Because the premiums on these policies are astronomical (so are the commissions) in order to pay for the investment option, you get bare-bones life insurance and your family’s protection stinks.

Though your jobs pay enough to afford an $18,000 annual premium, you need life insurance about as much as we need a nuclear winter. The policies you have at work are sufficient until you two decide to have a family. Meanwhile, your stockbroker has given you good advice on the following issues.

Sun-Times Media Group Inc. (SVN-$2.73), formerly known as Hollinger International, publishes the Chicago Sun-Times, The Post-Tribune and The Daily Southtown as well as papers in Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel. Way back in 2004, when rumors surfaced that Chief Executive Officer Conrad Black was looting the company, SVN was trading between $19 and $20. Shareholders began to bail as Conrad allegedly emptied the corporate coffers, and SVN collapsed to $4 a share in March of this year.

But small daily and weekly papers are superb assets, because they are effective advertising tools for local restaurants, personal service establishments and neighborhood businesses. Though SVN hasn’t been profitable or cash-flow positive since 2001, it has an excellent readership base, and new management can turn this company around.

Even with a negative book value, declining revenues and temporary legal problems, there is a speculatively compelling reason to own SVN. Private-equity money seems to be interested in this wimpy sector. And when comparing SVN’s market value plus net debt to revenues, SVN is cheaper on a value basis than other publicly traded papers. Your broker wears a good thinking cap, and SVN may be an attractive target for a private-equity firm. Keep your shares, and perhaps in the next year or so they could be worth significantly more than they are today.

His recommendation of the no-load T. Rowe Price Media & Telecommunications Fund (PRMTX-$50.21) is an estimable choice for conservative growth. This five-star large-cap growth fund has a low expense ratio plus a 10-year average annual return of 11.6 percent. The telecommunications sector should continue to be robust for the foreseeable future. My congratulations to your broker for recommending this $2 billion portfolio fund.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@comcast.net.

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