PREZ PUSHES PRISON FOR SCAMMERS

New York Post ^ | 6/29/02 | DEBORAH ORIN

[kattracks]

June 29, 2002 -- A furious President Bush yesterday warned corporate chiefs to stop "trying to fudge the numbers" - and the White House said he wants "bad apples" to go directly to jail.

Bush will come to Wall Street to personally deliver that stern message to the titans of industry on July 9 as he copes with escalating corporate scandals that could spell political and economic trouble.

[Elkiejg]

There was no word on whether the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would return $100,000 of WorldCom cash.

That says it all!!!! Notice McCaniac also benefited from WorldCom donations - thing he'll return his????

[Tuco-bad]

PREZ PUSHES PRISON FOR SCAMMERS

What a terrible idea!

Who will be left to run America's businesses?

[DB]

There are plenty of honest business people in America.

Let the bad apples rot in prison.

[Uncle Bill]

"There are plenty of honest business people in America.

Let the bad apples rot in prison."

Amen. Stick them in prison

[Donald Stone]

Dear President Bush - Be careful of your public statements, within the next couple of weeks there is a high probabilty that some of your close personal aquaintances and political cronies that have strong ties to the Republican National Committee and others with ties to the Democratic National Party will be implicated in a number fraudulent schemes,one which is connected to a $325 million public offering.

The White House announced that all national Republican campaign committees will return all fat-cat funds they got from WorldCom this year - including $100,000 at a dinner starring Bush just over a week ago.

[knuthom]

"Corporate America has got to understand there's a higher calling than trying to fudge the numbers, trying to slip a billion here or a billion there and hope nobody notices," Bush said at a GOP fund-raiser yesterday.

Does this apply to government, too?

[leprechaun9]

Never mind jail, HOW ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY?

That is the only sure way that those who are convicted never again have the opportunity to destroy the lives of so many people, such as the employees and their families.

[carenot]

Wow!

Thanks, Unc.

BUMP!

[Tokhtamish]

Bad business model will never compete against good, and the ultimate punishment to scammers should be the ultimate fall of their business.

Punishment ? The scammers dumped stock at full value that they knew was worthless and skipped town to the mansions they paid for with obscene bonuses. It was the workers who lost their jobs and the working people whose retirement nest eggs were wiped out who were 'punished'. The scammers are still rich. You think the public doesn't know that ?

Shareholders are supposed to take investment risk, and fear of losing capital is a vital force in the markets. No government regulation can guarantee profits or compensate investors for their losses. Shareholders are victims, but they are also accomplices of the fraud this market became.

When American business made the decision to replace pensions with 401K's, a greater degree of oversight is the political cost, now that people have been pushed into the stock market who cannot afford to lose. It is not the business of government to guarantee profits. But now that more people are involved in the stock market it is naive not to realize that there is a massive and unstoppable (like everyone over the age of 35 ?) constituency to demand regulatory reforms to punish Enron,WorldCom,GlobalCrossing style thievery and prevent it from happenning again.

[Ferris]

But there will never be punishment for those government officials who cook the books and lie so bad they make Ken Lay look like the poster boy for honesty...

And it's the government that takes your money at the point of a gun...

No business can ever do that...

Don't let this massive amount of cognitive dissonance hit you in the eye...

[lewislynn]

PREZ PUSHES PRISON FOR SCAMMERS

I hope that goes for his buddies the titans in the energy frauds too.

[goodieD]

I'll probably get blasted for this...but oh well.. Am I the only on who thinks we are spending too much time and energy on rotten companies that we could be spending on the war and internal security effort?

[gwynapnudd]

If I understand correctly, all corporate CEOs now have to go back and recertify last year's reporting. This amounts to a redo for the criminals and is a preferential treatment for this class of person.

So much for equal justice under law.

[Tokhtamish]

Everything about this scandal is about class privilege. It is about rich people rigging the rules so that only the little guy bears the consequences of their actions. 'Market forces' isn't some impersonal agency like the weather. It is the plans and machinations of human beings. You think 'class' is a dirty word. You can only think that if you flatly ignore who gets away and who pays.

A key aspect of class privilege is that those who possess it have access to information and contacts that are not available to the unprivileged. The 'old boy network' which is after all about sharing favors and confidential information. The executives of these companies knew the last possible moment to dump their stock before it became impossible to hide anymore. They had information that the little guy didn't. Privilege is having insider information. Martha Stewart, being a famous person, could call in a favor and get advance warning the less well connected couldn't. The unseen hand scratched her back. Far from any 'marxist' twaddle, class privilege is nothing more and nothing less than the basic human instinct to look out first for yourself, your friends, relatives, and people whom you wish to be indebted to you. I don't know if anyone has ever told you libertarians this but Homo Economicus is primarily a social animal.

Regulation is how the unconnected protect themselves against the intrigues of the connected. Nonsense about the employer and employee being 'equal' suggests that you live in some kind of Randian fantasy world.

[Tuco-bad]

There are plenty of honest business people in America

Honest business people - now that's an oxymoran!

[DB]

I'm one and there are many others here as well.

I don't take kindly to being call dishonest.