Posted on 06/27/2002 2:29:31 PM PDT by Liz
NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - You don't hear much from the bond market vigilantes anymore, but there's new talk of rough justice on Wall Street. The bond market vigilantes rose to prominence in the early 1990s by pushing bond prices down and interest rates up at the slightest whiff of inflationary government spending plans. Such noble public policy gestures were, of course, also in the vigilantes' self interest.
Now in our time of the great executive suite fraud, America's wild West mythology and terminology again is being dragged out.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill almost actually said "hang 'em high." He did say, according to The Wall Street Journal, that corporate officers who have broken the law and misused the public trust deserve "to hang ... from the very highest branches."
Thursday, he added on a television program, "We are going to take away these excuses. If CEOs and CFOs certify what is true, and if they falsely certify, they are going to go to jail, and we think that is the right step."
Also Thursday, AMR Corp. Chief Executive Officer Donald Carty said executive law-breakers need to be vigorously prosecuted and the government needs to "send a bunch of people to prison" to restore public confidence.
The calls for wayward executives to be placed behind bars, to be forced to disgorge earnings and assets and to otherwise be significantly and forcefully punished are many and they will continue.
The revelations of accounting malfeasance at WorldCom, the latest in the long and surely not completed list of corporate scandal, has worn patience to the breaking point among investors, government officials and the general public.
It seems much more likely now that reforms with teeth are going to pass through Congress on accounting oversight and get signed by the president. It seems much more likely now that the Securities and Exchange Commission will get more adequate funding for its extraordinarily expanded and crucial role in rule-making and enforcement. It seems much more likely now that corporate governance will see real reform and corporate boards, by definition imperfect, will generally grow more independent of corporate management.
And it seems increasingly likely that the penalties dished out for those eventually convicted by juries of white collar crimes will include jail time.
There is a growing anger and appetite to make responsible people pay for the litany of scandals that fairly or not is now often blamed for the bleak state of U.S. equity markets.
There is a growing anger in a United States that finds its boastful corporate capitalism, so recently lecturing to the world on how it is done, now tarnished at home and around the globe.
There have been studies and controversy about whether strict jail sentences act as a deterrent to crime.
The world of white collar, corporate crime is likely now to get a few more tough sentences for future study.
- Neal Lipschutz is senior editor, Americas, Dow Jones Newswires.
AP-ES-06-27-02 1659EDT
I would rather see jail time than prison. Federal prisons are not known as "Club Fed" for nothing. As a GI who saw federal prisoners living easier than our armed forces, I say, "Send 'em to jail." Send them to East LA and let them serve their time with real bad boys, send them to AZ to spent time in a hardback and then send them to AL to learn the meaning of chain gang. Don't send them to a country club with all the amenities!
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill almost actually said "hang 'em high." He did say, according to The Wall Street Journal, that corporate officers who have broken the law and misused the public trust deserve "to hang ... from the very highest branches."
Maybe Jake Reno and her blubber Bubba Clinton will visit their friends in their new surroundings?
Thursday, O Neill added on a television program, "We are going to take away these excuses. If CEOs and CFOs certify what is true, and if they falsely certify, they are going to go to jail, and we think that is the right step."
That oughta be a cozy little group......have a lot to talk about, eh?
Mrs. Clinton probably doesn't think this is a good thing.
Does anyone see a problem here?
The old NAACP analogy of a classist (racist in many cases) enforcement of law is rings true.
The idea that one in a position of trust--with clear obligations towards those who are supposed to be the benefiaries of that trust (in the case of Corporate C.E.O.s to the owners--shareholders--and in the case of politicians to the public, as defined by the Constitution)--should even be looking for verbal loopholes to escape the clear priorities of that trust, bespeaks the degenerate lack of real values of our times.
It does not excuse the individual malefactor--not the WorldCom or Enron executive, nor the majority of Congressmen and Senators--that so many others play the same game. But we will not see the end of it until people, generally, once again truly start to understand the concepts of duty, honor and the limitations of office.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
No offense Bill but when do you expect this to occur? Our lifetime? I think not!
J
No offense Bill but when do you expect this to occur? Our lifetime? I think not!
I cannot even aspire to the level of foresight, as would make a prediction on that possible. That we are coming to the end of an era, I believe to be obvious. As to what comes next, no one can accurately predict. But one hangs around this venue, hoping to stir up thought that will go into the dynamic. We could wallow in a form of philosophic chaos for generations, I suppose; or something could trigger a general wakeup among intelligent Americans, tomorrow. Your guess is as good as mine.
But we do need to identify the problem, even if it is not easily solved. A change in social pressures--in public perceptions of right and wrong approaches--can be a powerful force for good or ill.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Therein lies the problem. People such as yourself who want to make everyone suffer for the actions of a few.
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