Crisis in the corner office
csmonitor.com
<<...There is considerable disagreement about the scope of CEO abuses. Last Friday, President Bush said that "the vast majority of our leaders in the business community are honest and upright people." Earlier he used the phrase "some bad apples" to describe the situation.
Mr. Paulson of Goldman Sachs takes a middle view. "The overwhelming majority of CEOs, boards, and regulators are men and women of high integrity, competent, and working hard." But he adds, "I certainly don't take the view that this behavior was limited to an isolated few. And I have to say there were more abuses and problems than I would have hoped."
The view from outside the corporate community is more stark. "I am convinced it is very widespread. It comes up in many ways in many different companies," says Arthur Levitt Jr., former chairman of the SEC.
Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, agrees the misconduct is widespread. "It depends, I think, partly on what industry you are in. But you have a whole profession that has arisen in the past 15 years – so-called financial engineering.... A large part of it is how to get around accounting rules and IRS rules using very abstruse techniques."
"We have only seen the tip of the iceberg," predicts Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina del Rey, Calif. "The scope and enormity of the companies that have gone under... make Teapot Dome [a scandal in the Harding administration] look like kindergarten."...>>
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Btw, RR I agree that ' The American market will survive and Perseverance will prevail.' Yet, I think tremendous damage has been done and the healing may take longer than most folks predict. What are you hearing from some of the Execs and Directors that you deal with..?? |
