Rash of Corporate Corruption stems from the Clinton

Self | 6/29/02 | Self

[astudent]

It is clear to me that the amoral, unethical, and crimial Clintons are a primary reason for the rash of corporate corruption that has come to light during the past year. So many of the skills required for lying and avoiding responsibility were taught by the Clintons to our corporate leadership. Clearly Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco managments thought they could adopt the Clintons' technigues --- and they have. Bill and Hillary taught us to commit crimes to achieve power, control or money; to deny and lie about crime roles; to destroy or hide all evidence; to accuse opponents of having bad motives. This is Bill and Hillary's legacy to us---thanks Guys

[astudent]

I believe we may agree -- but we are looking at different aspects of the problem.

Good leadership does what is right --- not what is expedient. Clinton, as The President of our country was supposed to set the example. Others follow the example of the leader. Similarly, Corpoate leders set the example in their company and do what is right for their firms if they do their job properly. Companies which do the right thing look to the long term development of their firms and balance them with the current needs.

As a shareholder you had the right to want your shares to go up rapidly. As a manager the leaders of Enron, WorldCome etc. had a responsibility to do what was right. They should weigh your requests -- and then look at what is best for their companies.

[astudent]

I don't understand what you mean by trolls. Who are the trolls? The Clintons? Me? the corporate executives?
Please explain.

[astudent]

Perhaps I overstated the point. My point was that the Clinton's contributed -- by being our leaders and setting a bad example --- and their actions guided some of us to act improperly.

Can I come out of my room now?

Do you agree that they have been a factor in our moral and ethical degradation?

[astudent]

Well Put. Thank you

[astudent]

Thanks.
I agree with you that the Government has played with the statistics and adjusted the results to make it appear we were stronger than we were.

[Puddleglum]

I think it all boils down to greed, and of CEOs and etc taking advantage of peoples' desire to find an investment that will give them huge returns. I just finished reading the book "Funny Money" about the 1980's oil boom/bust and I have long thought that the dotcom investing trend reminded me of that era. Lots of speculation in seafch of the big payoff, with crooked types all too ready to part folks from their cash. This was just on a bigger scale. Greed blinding reason is what I attribute it to, I guess, from the investors to the bankers to the obliging "industry" folks.

I don't particularly blame it on Clinton; I think there are more greedy unethical folks in high places that all got there by riding the same wave of narcissism and egotism, fueled by a lack of humility, religious values and community concern. I think the community-concern element of the American Dream needs to get more focus, and our idol-driven culture needs some serious diminution, or else everyone walks around with their own theme-music in their head imagining that all other people are mere stage-dressing in their on-man play.

(apologies in advance for any pre-coffee typos or just plain nonsense)

[eeriegeno]

Yep, that's the ticket. Let's blame the bubble on people's greed and crooked CEO's. Let's forget that a senile FED chairman pumped the cost of money when there was no reason to do that. Let's forget that crude was allowed to climb to WW2 prices by the Clinton administration (Richardson was too busy finding a job for a certain person so that she didn't have to be Fostered). Let's also forget that Clinton hyped the economy for political reasons 3 or 4 times a week as 'the best economy on over 40 years.' Let's forget that market analysts were allowed to hype stock prices so that they could make big bucks (Abbey Cohen priced Yahoo at $1000/ share). Let's forget about all that (and much more) and blame everything on public greed and crooked CEO's. One other thing to keep in mind, not one of these, so-called, crooked CEO's or any politician who allowed the collapse of 2000 to happen is in jail YET. The pure and simple truth about bubble, my friends, is that it was pricked by politicians just in time for the 2000 elections. And the snowball started rolling.

[astudent]

My point is that the Clintons were a major factor in guiding many folks to believe that ethics and doing the right thing don't matter ---and that this has had an affect on senior corporate behavior.

I am sure you would agree that their leadership was a factor in this all for me --- and what is left over is for you --- attitude

[Puddleglum]

No offense, but just about everything you list, except senility, sounds like examples of greed. I suppose you could reason that Clinton got elected to two terms because his promises of government handouts and a life without personal responsibility appealed to folks' greed and/or a desire to maximize their benefit without paying a realistic cost. But I think the current sehanigans had more to do with corporate officer stock incentives that with who was in the White House.

I have to say that if corporate officers want to claim they deserve their huge salaries, then they have to claim some responsibility for these stock implosions as well. Or else we should recognize they don't have that much to do with their companies' success and pay them less. But you can't have it both ways. I happen to think that the "performance-based" stock options given to CEOs only encouraged the performance numbers fixing that has led this bubble to burst. Someone finally decided to check and see what assets were actually backing up their investments and saw the emperors had no clothes. Happened in the 1980's under Reagan in the oil patch, happened in the 90's under Clinton in the tech world. I don't see it as a partisan issue, since I think both were/are due to people not knowing much about what they're investing in but overlooking their own ignorance out of the hope of reaping a windfall.