Value Line Investment Survey was one of --- if not the --- best investment newsletter for many decades. Well, until Morningstar and other websites ate its lunch and, well, until Jean Buttner, CEO and heir to the company's helm, appointed by her father, got a hold of it. There have been numerous stories written about Value Line over the years (about how many now great analysts and fund managers were trained there, and about how awful the place was to work), and this story by Crain's New York Business writer Aaron Elstein is a nice overview of how Value Line, once king of investment research, stagnated under the rein of Buttner's 21-year reign. (She has agreed to pay $45 million in penalties to the SEC after for overcharging Value Line's proprietary mutual fund customers --- and she has been barred from running the company).