Posted on 06/26/2002 10:46:24 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush sat down privately with the nation's top business executives late last Thursday afternoon and gave them an earful about corporate ethics in what is being called America's second Gilded Age. It is a subject the president feels deeply about but so far has not addressed fully in public. So, his unscripted comments to the businessmen were not released.
Will President Bush ever speak to the public definitively on what he considers corporate conduct that poisons the stock market and threatens the economy? "Stay tuned," responded one aide who shares his concern. A presidential address is planned after the Fourth of July, on grounds the country will not pay attention between now and the summer holiday if he tries to restore investor confidence. Nevertheless, as the G-8 summit began in Canada Wednesday, the president was rocked by the WorldCom accounting scandal -- calling it "outrageous" and pledging to "fully investigate."
Bush until now has been restrained from expressing himself fully by words of caution inside and outside his administration. He is told presidential exhortation could worsen declining stock prices, while he contends corporate misbehavior is at the core of failing capital markets. In the president's silence, the U.S. government's voice has become low-level Justice Department aides mobilizing power to destroy the Arthur Andersen accounting firm.
Word spread through Washington last week that Bush would speak out at a previously scheduled meeting with The Business Roundtable (BRT), large corporation CEOs who belong by invitation only. Typically in dealing with big business, the White House covered the proceedings with a veil of secrecy.
The White House did not want to publicize the president's remarks, and left the account of Bush's admonitions about CEOs to a CEO: BRT Chairman John Dillon of International Paper. Dillon reported that Bush urged the business barons to "step up our focus on corporate governance" and "get out in front of this and make any corrections that are required." Dillon was defensive: "It bothers me immensely when people speak about, 'We don't trust CEOs,' and where that exists, we're going to fix it."
Understandably, that message was buried in an Associated Press dispatch and ignored by major newspapers. Nor did the news media pay much attention a night earlier when Bush, at the end of a pep talk to a massive Republican fund-raiser, declared: "If you run a corporation in America, you're responsible for being honest on your balance sheet with all your assets and liabilities." Republicans who paid up to $250,000 apiece to be with the president that night responded with restrained applause.
Such brief interjections by Bush throughout the year are in lieu of a full-scale treatment that would clearly align him against CEO greed. Recently when asked over dinner by a group of business executives whether the president would speak out on this issue, a top administration economic adviser replied that there simply was no time on Bush's crowded schedule -- a palpably implausible explanation. Actually, many administration officials who feel that Bush's intervention could be hazardous to the economy have pressed against such a speech.
In the absence of a ringing statement by Bush, his administration's anti-corruption message has been carried by young career lawyers on the Justice Department's Enron Task Force. Overriding efforts by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to save Arthur Andersen, the Justice Department destroyed the old accounting firm by indicting it.
When a jury voted a conviction June 15 via a bizarre course of reasoning, Justice lawyers looked giddy with joy. "We're not finished with Arthur Andersen," vowed task force chief Leslie Caldwell. There is not much public purpose in picking over the company's bones, and key members of Congress from both parties agree that the government's first target should have been Enron instead of Andersen.
Bush sees the problem as much bigger than Enron or Andersen. In private, the president loses his temper when he talks about betrayal by such CEOs as Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski, the multi-millionaire who cheated in avoiding sales taxes on fine art. Some aides still contend that Bush's own words would spook markets and that his good friend, Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans, should do the admonishing. But in his heart, George W. Bush seems to understand that only he can restore trust.
Contact Robert Novak | Read his biography
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Don't think they don't dream about it everyday.
"But in his heart, George W. Bush seems to understand that only he can restore trust."
If you are going to "tar and feather" corporate America why don't you set an example by cleaning up the corruption in Washington D.C. at the DOJ, FBI, SEC,and U.S. Dept. of Education etc,if in fact you are serious about restoring the public trust".
"If you run a corporation in America, you're responsible for being honest on your balance sheet with all your assets and liabilities." George W. Bush "But in his heart, George W. Bush seems to understand that only he can restore trust."
Yes, they do. And the FDR II standing in the wings is, of course, Hillary Roosevelt Clinton.
Cleaning up corporation ethics is certainly long overdue.
However, cleaning up government corruption and finding the missing hundreds of billions of taxpayer money - and holding accountable the "executives" (Government Agency Heads) who "lost" that money - is more overdue.
When will those "crooks" be brought to Justice?
And as the eager young Justice Dept lawyers start on their merry way to destroy another American corporation, they should remember that WorldCom, like Arthur Anderson, is made up of more than just the top execs. Over 50,000 more.
"Aggressive accounting" is double talk for violation of FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) rules, common sense, and honesty. Cooking books, the ease of which A. Andersen has made infamous, are just like the real estate appraisals of the '80's, pro forma fraud. Ethics in America went completely out of style during the self-indulgent Clinton decade of Greed & Seed; character doesn't count. When the bottom line wears a thong...
Our government is on a wild spending spree (inflationary) in addition to our war mobilization, many businesses will fail from accounting fraud webs, loans will be defaulted staggering banks, and job losses will undercut our national confidence, even without successful terror attacks.
A world-wide recession is a major goal of the Pan-Islamic movement. Three to four generations since 1930, This young generation coming of age has seen "the good old days" as history repeats with theo-fascism on the march amid self-inflicted grave economic wounds.
Our nation needs honest leadership and prompt indictments of bad actors, in and out of government. The Clintons in prison for of only some of their crimes would have made a good start, but they are more a symptom of our dangerous national problem than cause. Criminal millionairs and criminal politicians should learn that they'll serve decades along side with crackhead/meth gang bangers.
Coffee is now being served. /rant
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