Rather than "transparency and openness," I prefer
"ethics and protection of investors."
So tell me, c.i., what investor protection is advocated by the Dems?
Well for starters, Timber:
Quote:...As far as Bush's reporting the sale late to the SEC, it is not precisely clear what happened. Hughes told me in April 1999 that Bush believed he reported the sale earlier than SEC records indicated; she suggested the forms might have been lost, either inside Harken or the SEC. But whatever the reason, the fact that the report was filed late is not particularly damning in the absence of any underlying wrongdoing that a late filing might have been intended to conceal. And the SEC did not find anything that suggested such wrongdoing.
Since the president began his political career, there have been a number of meticulous examinations of the Harken sale*, first in Texas newspapers, then in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other national publications. None have come up with evidence that Bush did anything wrong in the Harken matter. Now, there will undoubtedly be more investigations of the same material. Democrats can hope, but it's unlikely they'll find what they're looking for.
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york070302.asp
*And the SEC didn't come up with the documents. Maybe Biggs, or another similar, would have "found" them.
Quote:REDUCING SEC FEES IS WRONG RESPONSE TO SYSTEMIC ENRON PROBLEM
The President today signed the Investor and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act, which drastically reduces the transaction, merger, and other fees paid to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Act makes cuts in SEC fees that were projected by the Congressional Budget Office to raise $14 billion over the next 10 years. The bill also included provisions that would authorize the SEC to pay its staff on a basis that is comparable to the other Federal financial regulatory agencies, potentially improving the ability of the SEC to attract and retain the highest quality staff....
..."One of our greatest priorities is the critical need to ensure adequate government oversight of our securities markets. This legislation does nothing to ensure that the SEC has the additional resources it greatly needs to address the many significant issues investors face in these markets." ...
http://www.house.gov/banking_democrats/pr_020116.htm
Tartarin, nothing there indicates any Democratic Party protection of investor interest ... quite the contrary, in fact, from my point of view as an active investor. A little fruitless witch hunting and some whining, but nothing whatsoever of benefit to investors.
That's because you're not looking at it, Timber. You've made up your mind, and that's that, right?
We just aren't gonna agree here, Tart ... as an active investor, I'm afraid I see no benefit at all in the Democratic proposals, nor merit in their complaints ... rather I see it as governmental meddling and partisan "Class Warfare" cavilling. I don't argue that no Financial Reform is called for; quite the contrary. However, I view the Democrat's approach as disingenuous, counter-intuitive, dangerously counterproductive, ill-thought, and completely unworkable. I guess by that standard, I gotta give 'em credit for consistency
So what does it take to make you feel safe as an investor, Timber?
Is Mr. Blatham still in the audience????
Timber- Tartarin has it all wrong. Everyone knows that the Democrats don't have time to help investors.
The Democrats are the party of the "little people", not the Plutocrats!
What would make me comfortable, Tart, would be a true free-market economy, without tarriffs, subsidies, or short-sighted counter-productive restrictive regulatory interference. The redistribution of wealth is not democratic, it is communist. I believe in a level playing field, with equal opportunity, responsible, growth-oriented regulation, and reward commensurate with risk and achievement. The keyword there is "Responsible" ... the good of the economy is dependent on fair treatment not only of the investor but of the worker as well; the true relationship is symbiotic, not adversarial. Far more good may be accomplished by working together toward the common goal of prosperity than by pitting the two against one another.
But do the corporations which live off government spending represent a level playing field or redistribution of power?
(And it's so easy to be "responsible" when you've already got it, including government pensions or pensions with tax benefits, nice houses bought with government assistance and/or deductions, nice roads built with everybody's money, free schools and government loans for higher education, etc. etc. I think one has the responsibility to recognize what others have done for one -- others whose names you'll never know and who pay taxes just as you do. The level playing field demands this recognition.)
The government is a consumer just as everyone else ... government spending is just spending, and a component of the overall economy. Curtailing waste, pork, and inefficiency would eliminate the deficit at a stroke.
Nobody "gave" me anything, other than the opportunity to work and to undertake informed risk to achieve what I have. Everyone should have the same opportunity, and the same risk. My real estate was not bought with "government assistance", my education was largely privately funded, apart from some Veteran's Benefits utilized later in my academic period, and any pension from which I may draw benefit is resultant from work and other direct contribution on my part. I think one has the responsibility to do one's part, not the entitlement to benefit from the contributions of others while providing no contribution oneself. As to tax benefits and tax relief, what could be more just and egalitarian than that such be provided in direct proportion to one's tax burden? One should be entitled only, and equally, to the rewards and consequences of one's own actions.
Except for those who bought their houses for cash, everyone get breaks from other taxpayers for mortgages, right? One's education, whether private or public, is tax-assisted (through tax generosity to non-profit, educational institutions and in other ways). Roads. Inexpensive food (thank you agricultural subsidies). Etc. etc.
This isn't about YOU, Timber, it's about all of us. Clearly, under the Bush regime, the pork is at the top -- I don't know anyone intelligent who denies this. You also dismiss people at the lower end of the income scale rather easily: you are doubtless picturing that convenient fiction, the "welfare mom." I'm picturing teachers and firemen, many writers and artists, low-paid agricultural workers, EMT's at $11/hour, etc. etc.
But this is directed at you: your tone seems so self-congratulatory. If you are hale and hearty and read Barron's, well that's fine. But not everyone in fact has that opportunity. The failure in their lives may not be due to laziness or failure to seize opportunity, but to disability, to lack of education, to rotten luck, to the lack of opportunity... to many swerves in life's course which you have been protected from, one way or another. But I don't care for those who take pride in damn good luck and call it self-actualization.
Bad things happen to good people, yeah, and that sucks, but its life. Society does have an obligation to care for those unable to care for themselves. Society has an obligation to provide equal opportunity ... real opportunity, not quotas and entitlements. And I take issue with those who attribute the rewards of dilegence, focus, application, and effort to mere good luck, or attribute the consequences of poor decisions to the imagined depradations of a non-existant sheltered class.
I disagree with Laissez Faire only in the fact that people run corporations and people are not always honest. An enterprise that is allowed to run without oversight can end up being another Enron, et al. The legislators (including one Democrat and signed into law by Clinton) opened up holes in the accounting oversight and those firms becoming consultants as well as accountants. It came back and bit them in the butt. It's no different than the privilege of driving -- there's oversight in the rules of the road and the policing of those rules. Unfortunately, corruption doesn't just occur in government -- it occurs in business more often and in state and local governments where oversight is not as diligent. We've had so many scandals in the local Newport Beach government, one could make a movie about it. The Bank of Newport failure was a huge bilking of the public which only got white washed by local officials.
Social Security is in place because these same businesses seem to have a problem providing retirement benefits -- one company I worked for milked funds out of their employee's retirement fund (and somehow with legal assistance got away with it!)
Anyone know anything about cooking books here? I do.
Cooking the books is easy, because most people do not know how the numbers were produced. Simple as that.
When I worked for Florsheim as a internal auditor and learned all the tricks of the trade, I had to laugh when outside auditors came in to audit the company. They knew deadly - nothing on how to look at the numbers. Most major accounting firm auditors don't know how to look. They follow a scripted book on auditing.
Long live Laissez Faire, long live circle-jerk corporate corruption.
Long live Social Darwinism.
Hey, in the long run, InfraBlue, Darwin was right; the fittest tend to number in the majority of the survivors.
