Michael Milken Milked Manuscript

The cranky Ming is tired of hearing how the great Michael Milken created the idea that a portfolio of high yield junk bonds can be a superior investment what with the excess yield more than covering defaults.

Let it be written into the record that as a student at Berkeley, he came across a study by W. Braddock Hickman evaluating companies with poor credit ratings. It was Hickman who concluded that a diversified portfolio of these instruments was relatively safe and threw off a high yield.

A.T. Atkinson extended that study to 1944-1965 with the same results. Milken was just a salesman hawking the ideas of someone else.

As with most things in life, the creator, discoverer or pioneer gets an arrow in his back and the guy that comes along after the heavy lifting has been done garners the rewards. Pioneers such as Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark and Simon Kenton died broke just as many will do who originally saw merit and invested in future successful biotechs which initially stumbled(or were pushed) to their financial detriment while later investors reap the easy profits once their innovations bear fruit.