20-06-2002 06:31									#91
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd Not from an economic point of view - the more money the rich get, the more money gets pumped into the economy in various ways, and the better off we all become.

You sound like Ruish Limbaugh.

	20-06-2002 06:37									#92
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quote: Originally posted by Asher But Boris doesn't know anything either, and he's acting like he says he does. I know more about corporate life and how it works than most people, sadly. Is that how you define corrupt in your world?

Bre-x there is one you should have heard of considering its from alberta. how many billions where made with that scam? Look at the vse, over 98% of those companies go bankrupt within 10 years, and the CEO & board of directors sit on 2-20 companies board of directors at the same time.. All they do is play the game.. pump the stock, sell shares, bankruptcy. Then there is the mafia, there are countless companies that are just mafia fronts for laundering money.

Then you get into the big time stuff, like currency trading, options, futures, etc etc. There you can find numerous examples of where one mans greed has wiped out banks in a matter of hours, or destroyed whole countries economies.

	20-06-2002 06:38									#93
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markusf, finding continual examples of corruption out of a pool of hundreds of thousands of companies is kinda moot.

	20-06-2002 06:44									#94
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quote: Originally posted by Asher markusf, finding continual examples of corruption out of a pool of hundreds of thousands of companies is kinda moot.

Can you not read.

"The TSE published a report last year saying that 70% of all quarterly earnings reports where leaked before hand."

	20-06-2002 06:47									#95
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I read that part, and I didn't see a link to it nor did I see any real justification for it. Perhaps the PR people jumped the gun a little bit? Who knows, I didn't get any information.

	20-06-2002 06:50									#96
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Yeh, but that's the TSE!

Get burned with your penny stocks, marcusf?

	20-06-2002 06:55									#97
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quote: Originally posted by DanS Yeh, but that's the TSE! Get burned with your penny stocks, marcusf?

I only short Its pretty much impossible to lose money shorting high flying crap especially these days.



Asher, those reports are sealed no one is supposed to have access to them before they are released to the media, the TSE is blue chips dans.. Besides the US markets make the TSE look like a side show.. (which it is)

	20-06-2002 06:58									#98
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"the TSE is blue chips dans.."



I bout lost a nut laughing there, markusf.

Been long any mining stocks lately?

	20-06-2002 07:09									#99
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quote: Originally posted by DanS "the TSE is blue chips dans.." I bout lost a nut laughing there, markusf. Been long any mining stocks lately?

Never ever played mining stocks, simpley nothing there to play. Except for PDG options.

I guess the TSE has something like 10 stocks that could count as blue chips LOL Wish i had bought some long positions though, gold had a nice run!

	20-06-2002 08:53									#100
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd Not from an economic point of view - the more money the rich get, the more money gets pumped into the economy in various ways, and the better off we all become.

A rising tide only lifts the boats that aren't anchored to the bottom.

	20-06-2002 09:19									#101
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Just a few comments.

Oversight of corporate earnings / statements needs to improve. There has been some movement on this front for some time. For example, the California Public Employees Retirement Fund (CALPERS) holds the worlds largest single stock portfolio. CALPERS has not hesitated to be vocal when it comes to questioning whether corporate management is acting in the interests of shareholders. Many large mutual funds are following suit. These funds are willing to spend the time and effort to keep a close eye on coroporate behavior because they have far more to lose than the average investor.

One factor that has not yet been mentioned here is the greed of some investors, which plays into the hand of corporate fraud. If an investment looks to good to be true, it probably is. In the last year or so a coouple of mutual funds I own took a close look at Enron, Tyco, and the like, and said there is nooooooo waaaaaaay they were going to get anywhere close to these stocks, regardless of what the auditors said. Another fund I owned bought Tyco enthusiastically, and loudly proclaimed their gains. I sold all my holdings in that fund.

Chegitz:
I dont have time to check all of the article you posted, but based on what I know, I dont trust it.

First, 1973 was the last boom year in the world economy before the 1974-1975 oil price increases. 1983 was the trough of a world-wide recession. Comparing the two probably says more about the state of the world economy than about the success or failure of Chilean economic policy. (And since the author could have chosen other years to make his comparison, one suspects the author was trying to mislead rather than inform. )

Second, Chile's economy is now much more diversified. Fruit, wine, and fish are now major exports, and copper is now much less important. This may or may not have required land reform. But the growth of these exports certainly did require substantial entrepeneurship, which is not likely to have occurred under a socialist or communist regime.

Lastly, if you have more "lies of deregulation", I would love to hear about them.

Boris:
Enron did not "single-handedly" screw up the California electricity market. California legislators, who refused to allow long-term supply contracts as part of deregulation, bear the brunt of the blame. This has been discussed in other threads.

	20-06-2002 09:31									#102
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Don't you have anything better to do that point out logic at 12:30 AM, ASmith?

	20-06-2002 09:48									#103
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quote: A rising tide only lifts the boats that aren't anchored to the bottom.

Fortunately, no one is anchored to the bottom, except of course in the more communistic systems.

	20-06-2002 09:51									#104
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"No one" being defined as 90% of the population.

	20-06-2002 12:27									#105
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And only when the tide goes out, you see who's been swimming naked (I think that's from Buffet).

But no America is not corrupt. In corrupt countries you could buy, for example, impunity....

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/business/18WALL.html

quote: Some members of the securities industry are pushing Congress to prevent states from pursuing those who violate securities laws, including Wall Street firms now under investigation for conflicts of interest by their stock analysts. A proposed amendment on the subject may be attached today to legislation that is actually intended to increase protections for investors by strengthening controls over the nation's accounting system and over stock analysts' practices. But the draft of the amendment, which began circulating last week, would block the states' current investigation of stock analysts and would severely restrict their enforcement of securities laws in the future, according to the association of state regulators..... Two legislative sources said Philip J. Purcell, chairman of Morgan Stanley, had recently made the rounds on Capitol Hill to promote legislation to curb state regulators' powers. One person said Mr. Purcell's idea had gained support among both Republicans and Democrats.....

If that fails they can still buy pardons from Bush.

	20-06-2002 15:11									#106
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Anyone can buy a pardom from bush

	20-06-2002 15:15									#107
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Almost like "Pardons grow on trees"....

	20-06-2002 23:50									#108
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quote: Originally posted by Deathwalker Anyone can buy a pardom from bush

Nope, poor folks can't.

	20-06-2002 23:55									#109
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quote: "No one" being defined as 90% of the population.

Sorry. "90% of the population" is not anchored to the bottom, either in the US or especially in a true capitalist system.

That would be true for communism, of course, or at least communism as it has been practiced anywhere in the world so far.

	21-06-2002 02:08									#110
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re: 90 percent

Might want to take a look at the 2000 US Census Data.

quote: '90s Boom Had Broad Impact 2000 Census Cites Income Growth Among Poor, Upper Middle Class Washington Post June 5, 2002; Page A1 The economic boom of the 1990s raised the incomes of the poorest Americans, held the size of the middle class steady and swelled the ranks of those with six-digit incomes, according to census data released yesterday.

I read the entire article when it came out, but this is the only part I can access electronically. Can anybody else find the rest?

	21-06-2002 02:36									#111
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Yawn - the all big corporations are corrupt brooding evil machines thing is patently absurd... it isn't even true for Enron! It is almost a form of racism, and unfortunately a widely accepted racism that will probably be around for a long time because of ignorance about how large organizational structures work.

	21-06-2002 02:46									#112
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quote: Originally posted by Deathwalker Anyone can buy a pardom from bush

Please provide a quick list of all the pardons that Bush has given out since taking office.

Then provide a quick list of all the pardons that Clinton gave out in his last two years.

The results will surprise you. (unless you already know that Clinton was scum )

	21-06-2002 13:07									#113
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"Then provide a quick list of all the pardons that Clinton gave out in his last two years."

I actually see my point based on the Clinton precedence. Why would you think Bush would change the practice ?

"...the all big corporations are corrupt brooding evil machines thing is patently absurd... "

Evil not, but corrupt. You must have a very narrow definition of "corrupt".... All are engaged in lobbying, and lobbying often turns into corruption, esp in the US.

	21-06-2002 16:29									#114
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov First, I didn't start this thread. Second, were none of the above malefactors being held accountable and punished for their misdeeds, then pointing out that such issues would need to be addressed is fine. Shooting rampage perps are in jail. Ken Lay is on a beach in Barbados.

Give the justice system some time. I suspect that some of these guys are going to pay back some of what they swindled. They may even see the inside of a country club prison. In general I would like to see large scale property crimes treated with the severity that drug heretofore has been reserved for drug dealers.

quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov It's not just Enron. It's Tyco, imClone, Global Crossing, Lucent, Nike, General Motors, General Electric, ChevronTexaco. Is it every company? No. Is it a lot of the biggest ones? Definitely. And since they control most of the wealth, they have the most power to ruin the lives of most people.

Hyperbole or ingnorance? What percentage of the money in the U.S. is controlled by all corporations big and small? Who owns those corporations?

quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Who the hell do you think runs the U.S. Government?

Noone. Anyone who thinks that an organization as large as the U.S. government is "run" by any particular subgroup is kidding themselves. The U.S. government spends much of it's energy fighting itself, a proxy war between the competing interests of literally millions of people.

quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov Campaigns are run on corporate dollars. Bills are passed based on which corporate interest can lobby the hardest. The problem isn't Bush, he's a stool pigeon. He's the puppet of the oil and energy companies, and they loan him out to their other corporate buddies. Bush didn't destroy Enron, it destroyed itself, and Bush was lucky to dodge the fallout (so far). Especially given the fact that Enron single-handedly manufactured the phony California energy crisis of 2 years ago, I think it's pretty damned impossible to assert the problem lies with some braindead politician.

It's not only possible to assert, it's possible to prove to anyone with an open mind that the California energy crisis was caused by the California legislature and excacerbated (that word always makes me smile, perhaps because I can't spell it) by Governor Davis, his attempts to shift the blame notwithstanding. Californians know who to blame, which is why Davis spent his campaign war chest in the Republican primary propping up a right wing (ie beatable) candidate rather than restoring his own image or airing his own issues. Considering the fact that California is heavily Democratic it seems to me that Davis is aware that he is in trouble.

quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov The problem is the nearly-unlimited ability corporate executives CEOs have to abuse their power and the trust of their employees and stockholders and get away with it. Ken Lay got away with it, don't you see? He's not being charged. He's keeping his millions. Who cares if his company collapsed, he made out like a bandit. Some CEOs don't take advantage of the system's weaknesses and are good, upstanding people. That in no way means we shouldn't make it as hard as possible for those who aren't so nice to pull the same kind of crap that Lay did.

I agree. Steal a million dollars and go to jail for 10 years. Steal a billion and have a seat on the electric chair. If we cannot build a society with effective ethics, then perhaps it's time we took our dumb-dumb zero tolerance policies and applied them to white collar crime.

	21-06-2002 17:58									#115
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I consider that when a politician steal money from the state for private use, this is simply treason and must be judged as it.

	21-06-2002 18:43									#116
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"What percentage of the money in the U.S. is controlled by all corporations big and small?"

What do you mean by "control" ? The final controller of money is the fed, and that one is owned by the banks and the speculators.

Political decisions have other influences of course, but those are usually extremely narrow special interests. The steel tariffs for example are the result of this.

I have serious doubts that anything will come out of the investigations. It'll take a couple of another bombshells to get anything out of this.

	21-06-2002 20:15									#117
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Adam Smith, now that I'm more awake, Greg Palast is a trained economist, under Milton Friedman at U of C in the early '70s. He is, in fact, one of the Chicago Boys, though he didn't go to Chile. His expertise in sorting out accounting stuff has been used by unions for decades to ferret out where corporations have been hiding their money. He also has helped the gov uncover some accounting skullduggery with regardess to some East Coast nuke plant. These days he's a journalist for the Guardian and the Independent.

	22-06-2002 05:40									#118
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quote: Originally posted by Roland I have serious doubts that anything will come out of the investigations. It'll take a couple of another bombshells to get anything out of this.

I agree with you, as many of the people being accused either have seats on the stock exchange, or the SEC. Its not to far fetched to suggest that when your assigned to investigating yourself or friends your not going to find anything wrong.