Stocks Plunge at Opening Bell

NEW YORK (AP) - News of another accounting scandal sent stocks plunging at the start of trading Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrials dropping more than 100 points and below 9,000 for the first time since Oct. 10.

An announcement from WorldCom that it had disguised $3.8 billion in expenses last year and early in 2002 stunned a market already mistrustful about corporate accounting following the collapse of Enron Corp. and revelations of bookkeeping irregularities at other companies.

Investors responded with intense selling in the early going. The Dow was at levels not seen since early October, when the stock market was recovering from the precipitous drop that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

As prices fell Wednesday, the Nasdaq composite dropped beneath the post-Sept. 11 closing low of 1,423.19, reached Sept. 21. The Standard & Poor's 500 index also fell below its Sept. 21 closing low of 965.80.

Investors had already been selling stocks for nearly six weeks as hopes faded for a robust economic recovery and a solid improvement in corporate earnings. With news of more corporate accounting problems, doubts resurfaced about the reliability of the earnings reports themselves.

I believe we might see a bounce here, seems the wise guys got caught looking and were unprepared, it will take a little bounce for them to get out. There is still massive holdings by the general public in funds that continue to decline, thus far these investors have ignored the reality of this bear market, I am sure most don’t even open their quarterly statements anymore. Before this is all over these people will decide to divest themselves of those losing funds, and the declines will be great. Remember, this bear market will be bought all the way down, the dip buyers, like crazed crap shooters at Atlantic City will keep buying till they are tapped out.

This is a tempest in a teapot, courtesy of the Enron scandal. Sadly, our guys decided to sacrifice the accounting profession's reputation to avoid being tainted by the Enron scandal. This has sent the stock market into a freefall, as investors question the basic accounting numbers. Now, as I understand it, WCOM capitalized some expenses rather than expensing them. This means that the expenses would have reduced earnings over the next 10+ years. Instead, the expenses will now reduce current earnings alone. This means that future accounting earnings will be much higher than before. Is that a bad thing? Not really, it is not much different than before, except for the deferred recognition of expenses. A $4 billion hit? No way, more like 1/10 of that. Are the financial press reporting this responsibly? HELL NO, but that's politics. So why is WCOM down 75%? Investor panic.

Working down to it.

BTW I went to a theme restaurant last night. The staff sung a stupid sounding birthday song to the tune of "She'll be coming round the mountain".

From a goggled site: Ye Olde Birtheday Page

Happy Birthday to You" Where did that song come from? The story of how the song "Happy Birthday to You" came to be, began as a sweet one, that later soured. Two sisters, Mildred Hill, a teacher at the Louisville, Kentucky Experimental Kindergarten, and Dr. Patty Hill, the principal of the same school, together wrote a song for the children, entitled "Good Morning to All." When Mildred combined her musical talents, as the resident expert on spiritual songs, and as the organist for her church, with her sister's expertise in the area of Kindergarten Education, "Good Morning to All" was sure to be a success.
The sisters published the song in a collection entitled "Song Stories of the Kindergarten" in 1893. Thirty-one years later, after Dr. Patty Hill became the head of the Department of Kindergarten Education at Columbia University's Teacher College, a gentleman by the name of Robert H. Coleman published the song, without the sisters' permission. To add insult to injury, he added a second verse, the familiar "Happy Birthday to You." [1924]
Mr. Coleman's addition of the second verse popularized the song and, eventually, the sisters' original first verse disappeared. "Happy Birthday to You," the one and only birthday song, had altogether replaced the sisters' original title, "Good Morning to All."
After Mildred died in 1916, Patty, together with a third sister named Jessica, sprang into action and took Mr. Coleman to court. In court, they proved that they, indeed, owned the melody. Because the family legally owns the song, it is entitled to royalties from it, whenever it is sung for commercial purposes.
Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday".
To whom did they pay it ???? Can't find out....
"Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.

It's been 78 years since the publication of the "Happy Birthday to You" song with lyrics, and 109 years since the publication of the melody.

Why in all get out is this song still copyrighted?

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