Posted on 03/27/2010 11:03:39 AM PDT by opentalk
The notion that the pain of Obamacare would not really be felt for a few years has always been silly. It won't be fully felt, but he economy is dynamic. Corporations have to plan today for the conditions of tomorrow. More to the point, public corporations with disclosure obligations under the securities laws have to disclose today when developments change their outlook for tomorrow.
Hence, AT&T's announcement that Obamacare will force it to take a $1 billion dollar charge — the most alarming (but entirely predictable) bad news in a parade that, the Wall Street Journal's editors note, "includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million."
But here is the most frightful news yet about our new reality: People's Commissar Henry Waxman is now planning to haul the companies before his committee because their disclosures fail to play along with the our Leftist rulers' script that Obamacare "will expand coverage and bring down costs."
As the Journal's editors observe:
Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.
Let me echo that. I worked for many years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in whose backyard was Wall Street. If a company like AT&T failed to make a legally mandated restatement of its financial position while continuing to participate in the capital markets, it would be investigated and the responsible management officials would likely find themselves prosecuted while the SEC, concurrently, went after the company and its officiallys in civil enforcement suits. There are prosecutors and investigators who would salivate at the prospect of doing such a career-making case.
If we are now under a system where disclosure gets you a public whipping and other threats by the Powers That Be while nondisclosure promises the ruinous expenses of defending against criminal investigations and civil enforcement, this is no longer anything but a thugocracy.
More Hitler tactics being employed by the Obama team.
Before Zero-care passed Waxman would have hauled them before a committee for NOT doing this.
The good news is that if the CEOs keep quite, their balance sheets will do the talking.
Waxman loves to sit on his raised platform and look down his nostrils at his victims. In reality he’s a mental midget who’d find it difficult to get a job in the real world.
The CEO of Caterpillar thought he could work with Obama, but got wacked immediately. Guess he learned his lesson. They were talking the negative effect before the passage of the law. He is retiring shortly, so I guess he thought he could take the heat.
bookmark.
Henry Waxman is an ornament to his profession.
Whatever that profession may be.
At first I thought, maybe “pimp”, but pimps are respectable and conservative businessmen in comparison.
>> McCarthy: fail to play along with the our Leftist rulers’ script
That’s right folks - we’re not talking about Liberals. These radicals are hardcore Leftists!
Sadly, because of Waxman and his Marxist buddies, none of us are able to get a job in the real world... at least the one the Obamanation has created.
“Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We *want* them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against– then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
— Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged ,
This is good....:^)
Waxman will have to try and debunk the AT&T cost numbers.
I bet the AT&T numbers have much more data behind them than the govt. rosy numbers. The public debate could be quite interesting...
I hope that one of these CEOs will have the balls to speak out against tyranny. Maybe one will. They could have their corporate jet take them to their remote bunker out of the country shortly after giving their testimony. Better have an ex Mossad agent as bodyguard.
The Supreme court ruled decisively (in the McCain-Feingold case) that corporations most definitely do have free speech rights, so this will not survive any legal challenge.
These corporate titans take their oversized bonuses but are too chickensh!t to denounce Nostrilitis Waxman in a committee hearing? What are they paid for?
If they have any cojones they demand an open televised hearing then they say— “Have you no decency Representative Waxman!”
**** Welch pulled this on Joseph McCarthy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch
Henry Waxman is a professional thief.
I don’t know what kind of ground rules the minority on Waxman’s committee have to play by, but if I was one of them, I’d have an appropriate career prosecutor from the Justice Department called as a witness, as well as an enforcemtn officer from the SEC.
And then I’d ask them if it’s okay for entities like those in question to keep their anticipated costs hidden - and if they answer in the affirmative, I’d ask them in what other situations corporations are allowed to hide from the public known anticipated costs that will affect their share value.
You might be right. Fortunately, there are more people today who see through this than saw through Hitler in the early 1930s.
Obama media kept touting how little it was going to cost government and how much it would save deficit over 10 years. It never even once honestly told how much it would cost the employers, to the economy, to the private sector, to the employment market. Sure enough, when they all go bonkers, liberal media will the there to sell the sob stories to push for even more corporate welfare and entitlements and government regulations and take over.
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