Seems like there was discussion a while back about where corporations came from and how they came to be legal persons. If I recall, Congress created them in the late 1800s, which makes corporation problems Congress's baby.
"Physician, heal thyself." ("Perhaps McCain should look to his own house first..")
As Steve Forbes said last Saturday on Forbes on Fox,
"Senators should have to sign the U.S. Budget under penalty of criminal prosecution," (paraphrasing Forbes)
If there are any inaccuracies,
any fraud,
any deficit spending,
any deceptive accounting,
any theft of public resources.
Of ourse the senate is filled with more hypocritical thieves and leftist-socialist windbags, who engage in theft, waste,
deceptive accounting tricks, fraud on a grand scale (the Federal Deficit is >$6 TRILLION,
WASTE is in the hundreds of billions annually,
theft of hundreds of billions of dollars annually is from
honest, quiet, hard-working ordinary Americans on the grandest of scales imaginable, and then some) every day,
which would send any ordinary businessman up the river for life.
(To paraphrase Sen. Hollings:
"We do every single day with the Budget,
things which would be sufficient to send an ordinary businessman to jail for life.")
Right now, it is impossible to know if the overprojections made by executives at WorldCom were the result of deliberate fraud or simply came about because of boom-induced calculations. Everyone now knows that those calculation were in gross error, yet under the conditions that existed because of the Fed-caused artificial boom, WorldCom’s projections might very well have been reasonable.
Just as politicians and bureaucrats have the gall of pointing their fingers at Enron, WorldCom etc, -- taking the "high road" when the government is by far the champion at cooking the books -- they would expect WorldCom guilty of following government bureaucrats destructive lead -- it was politician and bureaucrats irrational exuberance that lead the charge. The trio of Clinton, Greenspan and Rubin lead the charge followed by the unsuspecting business community and investing public.
The irony is that putting money in the stock market is speculation. Investment instruments or vehicles are savings accounts, guaranteed certificate of deposits (CDs), savings bonds and annuities -- if a person wants to speculate there's the commodities and futures markets, FOREX currency markets and stock markets. To name a few of each.
In terms of freedom of investment-and-speculation information the government has always held an oppressive and protectionist relationship with the financial and speculation markets as well as with the individual investors and speculators. Information about foreign investment instruments and speculation markets is basically non-existent in the United States. That's not because their undesirable, for many lucrative off-shore opportunities do exist, rather, it's because the government controls an unfair market advantage against the people and their business community. Speculative and investment instruments are not advertised in the U.S..
That does not mean those projections were a good thing, given the conditions of the boom. Credit-induced booms are unsustainable, and someone must ultimately pay the piper.
We had businesses that had no choice but to compete amongst themselves in an artificial boom. We had close to one hundred million investors that were in effect, speculating in markets. ...Speculating in markets orchestrated by the Clinton/Greenspan/Rubin trio's bubble-debt economy bound to protectionists financial-market oversight was a sure to be followed by a proportionately-sized bust.
The unmitigated gall of politicians and bureaucrats to be blaming the business community and yanking on inventors bruised-emotional chains -- intentionally adding fuel to the fire -- encouraging them to call for "lynchings".
The government is not the solution, it is the problem! Ceaselessly creating a never-ending array of problems that need not exist in the first place.
The Genie is Out of the Bottle.
Congress has created so many laws that virtually every person is assured of breaking more than just traffic laws. Surely with all this supposed lawlessness people and society should have long ago run head long into destruction. But it has not.
Instead, people and society have progressively prospered. Doing so despite politicians creating on average, 3,000 new laws each year which self-serving alphabet-agency bureaucrats implement/utilize to justify their usurped power and unearned paychecks. They both proclaim from on high -- with complicit endorsement from the media and academia -- that all those laws are "must-have" laws to thwart people and society from self-destruction.
Again, despite not having this year's 3,000 must-have laws people and society increased prosperity for years and decades prior. How can it be that suddenly the people and the society they form has managed to be so prosperous for so long but suddenly they will run such great risk of destroying their self-created prosperity?
The government is the all time champion of cooking the books and it has the gall to point fingers at the whole business community because of a few bad apples. The entire business community and employees that support it should stand tall against a government feigning to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books.
If there was ever a prime example of the fox guarding the hen house it is the government claiming to protect the little guy from organizations that cook their books. President Bush will have to militarily smash down terrorism. For that is his job. It's not the President's, congress or' the government's job to manipulate the economy.
The business community with their employees will have to stand tall against the PC-status-quo fox -- self-proclaimed authorities claiming/feigning they'll use the government to protect the little guy and a complicit media and academia that supports them; for they are all the fox -- to regain their rightful place as the champions of honest business that has always increased the well-being of people.
The government, having already manipulated the economy to almost no-end, President Bush can play the unbeatable five-ace hand of replacing the threat-of-force IRS and graduated income tax with a don't-pay-the-tax-if-you-don't-want-to consumption tax. For example, implement the proposed national retail sales tax (NRST). Not only would that win votes for Bush and republicans in congress it would boom the economy.
Where will it lead?
War of Two Worlds
Value Creators versus Value Destroyers
Politics is not the solution. It's the problem!
The first thing civilization must have is business/science. It's what the family needs so that its members can live creative, productive, happy lives. Business/science can survive, even thrive without government/bureaucracy.
Government/bureaucracy cannot survive without business/science. In general, business/science and family is the host and government/bureaucracy is a parasite.
Aside from that, keep valid government services that protect individual rights and property. Military defense, FBI, CIA, police and courts. With the rest of government striped away those few valid services would be several fold more efficient and effective than they are today.
Underwriters Laboratory is a private sector business that has to compete in a capitalist market. Underwriters laboratory is a good example of success where government fails.
Any government agency that is a value to the people and society -- which there are but a few -- could better serve the people by being in the private sector where competition demands maximum performance.
Wake up! They are the parasites. We are the host. We don't need them. They need us.
* * *
After all, in calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commissioner Harvey Pitt, McCain declares, “Government’s demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well." Does that mean U.S. senators?
"Too often, we have cooked the books, exploited off-balance sheet accounting, fudged budget numbers and failed to disclose fully the nation's assets and liabilities. If we in Washington are to have credibility in the public eye as we address the corporate accounting mess, we must reform our own fiscal practices," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals
Prove it first. It's not like it's a new discovery or problem. It's a seventy-year-old problem. It's just that now politicians and bureaucrats have trapped themselves and the general public is becoming increasingly aware. They've been caught and McCain is getting interview time to peddle gussied-up compassionate government.
"Allowing Americans to invest responsibly a small part of their payroll taxes will not only save Social Security, but will provide them with greater retirement income than those who no or will soon depend on Social Security checks," said McCain. Social Security Called A Bigger Fraud Than Corporate Scandals
Notice McCain so readily wants himself and government to allow Americans to invest part of their own money. But he has a condition; it most be done responsibly. And who decides what is responsible? Certainly not the all-time champion, cook-the-books bureaucrats and snake-oil-salesmen politicians.
The are running citizens and society headlong into destruction.