>>Jay, being a liberty-loving individualist, I'm not in favour of collective guilt and punishment. Foolish investors in Globalstar, Global Crossing, Enron, Worldcom, rafts of cyberspace companies and other things have been cleaned right out. They cannot be more punished. >>
That's fine, to an extent, when the rules are fair and the game hasn't been rigged. Many of the foolish could better be called the fooled, as the events have demonstrated. The ultimate accounting scandal is that the crooks don't seem to be accounting for their crime with hard time and total restitution, since their ilk paid off the gov't to write the rules for them. If you think you've seen the end of the insider swindling washout and p/e's are going to stay in the high 30s in perpetuity, well, unh unh.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't suffered personally from any of this, or gambled in those particular companies' casinos. But the rot in this system is going to screw a lot of good "little" people while the thieves retreat to their bankruptcy protected mansions. Oh well, you say.
The sorriest part of the whole lot is that two of the participants and former cheerleaders, HarkenBush and HalliburtonCheney, will be lecturing us on Monday. Surrealism reaches new heights. I'd be reaching for the barf bag, but I have no intention of listening to their sham. |
