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To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (127428)	6/29/2001 9:08:18 AM
From: H James Morris	Respond to of 164684

Vic, here's someone who's upset with the sluts. TSIX files busto papers. Message 16011843

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (127428)	6/29/2001 11:07:52 AM
From: Mark Fowler	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

Hoc 32.7@

To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (127428)	6/29/2001 12:04:44 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>Analysts pushing energy stocks today, Vic, I assume you think energy analysts just push while tech analysts just pimp. Is that correct? Btw Don't count on it either. >June 29, 2001 A congressional committee is looking into securities analysts' conflicts of interest. What's next? Charles Ponzi investigating financial fraud? Murder, Inc. probing homicide? To be sure, securities analysts' conflicts should be investigated -- by the appropriate body. As this column has stated for years, the stock market bubble of the 1990s was created in part by phony accounting and market manipulation that analysts overlooked because they were drumming up investment banking business for their firms. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating manipulation of initial public offerings and phony accounting, among a number of cancers. Other public and private institutions are looking into a variety of dubious relationships between corporations and Wall Street. But Congress? It has battled accounting reforms, such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board's attempt to force companies to take stock options as an expense. Prodded by the biggest options abusers -- Silicon Valley -- California's two Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, "were leading the charge to gut the FASB" when it wanted options reform several years ago, says former San Diego compensation consultant and Bloomberg News columnist Graef Crystal. Silicon Valley warned that lower-level employees would lose their options. "So being arch-liberals, they (Feinstein and Boxer) had to believe in false accounting and threatened to disband the FASB," says Crystal. So who wound up cashing in quickly on IPOs last year? Sen. Boxer and her husband. According to congressional figures, Boxer made 200 percent on one IPO in a day and 184 percent on another in less than a day. The Boxers claim they got no special treatment. Former Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato of New York, while he was ranking Republican on a key finance committee, cashed in big on IPOs through a brokerage later charged by the SEC with manipulating prices. Former House Speaker Tom Foley amassed more than $100,000 and a nifty 95 percent profit in IPOs. On a local level, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown got into eight IPOs managed by the firm that he selected to sell the bonds for his city's proposed football stadium. In San Diego, former councilwoman Valerie Stallings cashed in on an IPO of a Texas software company controlled by Padres owner John Moores, who was wooing the council to favor his downtown ballpark and real estate windfall. (The U.S. Attorney's Office investigated Moores' role in the case and decided he should not be charged.) Will Congress look into their fellow politicians? Don't count on it. Would Congress offer intelligent legislation to curb these analyst/underwriter abuses? Don't count on that, either.