Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (45109)	12/13/2001 10:47:56 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

I hope you are right jp. If not, we can't rely on any so called independent audit reports to give us a clue on how companies are really performing. Without that, how can you attempt to value a company's worth?????? More on the bad economic news front.................. 10:40 ET Global Crossing (GX) 0.84 -0.28 (-25%): Stock reacting to WSJ report that concern about the company's liquidity is growing. Article states that when a company's debt and bonds fall to such distressed levels, the story often ends with a bankruptcy filing. GX said it would not comment on any bankruptcy rumors yesterday. 10:25 ET Bristol-Myers (BMY) 50.08 -0.37 (-0.7%): Reuters reports that BMY is likely to set 2002 earnings expectations below current consensus, due to legislation that could permit copycats of its blockbuster diabetes drug Glucophage. Article cited analysts.

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (45109)	12/13/2001 3:44:52 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Bush Invokes Executive Privilege Thursday December 13 12:04 PM ET By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush invoked executive privilege for the first time Thursday to keep Congress from seeing documents of prosecutors' decision-making in cases ranging from a decades-old Boston murder to the Clinton-era fund-raising probe. ``I believe congressional access to these documents would be contrary to the national interest,'' Bush wrote in a memo ordering Attorney General John Ashcroft to withhold the documents from a House investigative committee that subpoenaed them. The decision institutes a dramatic change in the way the administration intends to deal with Congress after years in which the Justice Department, sometimes reluctantly, shared sensitive investigative documents with lawmakers. Republicans and Democrats alike excoriated the decision, suggesting Bush was creating a ``monarchy'' or ``imperial'' presidency to keep Congress for overseeing the executive branch and guarding against corruption. The Republican House committee chairman who sought the documents raised the possibility of taking Bush to court for contempt of Congress. ``Everyone is in agreement you guys are making a big mistake,'' Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Justice lawyers at a hearing after the announcement. ``We might be able to go to the (House) floor and take this thing to court.'' The full House, controlled by Republicans, would have to vote to find Bush in contempt to start such a court battle. In his memo to Ashcroft, the president explained his decision. ``Disclosure to Congress of confidential advice to the attorney general regarding the appointment of a special counsel and confidential recommendations to Department of Justice officials regarding whether to bring criminal charges would inhibit the candor necessary to the effectiveness of the deliberative process by which the department makes prosecutorial decisions,'' Bush wrote. He added, ``It is my decision that you should not release these documents or otherwise make them available to the committee. ... I have decided to assert executive privilege.'' Burton decried the decision. ``This is not a monarchy,'' he said. ``The legislative branch has oversight responsibility to make sure there is no corruption in the executive branch.'' Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the committee, who frequently sparred with Burton during Clinton era investigations, agreed with his sometimes nemesis. ``An imperial presidency or an imperial justice department conflicts with the democratic principles of our nation,'' Waxman said. The decision immediately affects a subpoena from Burton's House Government Reform Committee for documents related to the FBI's handling of mob informants in Boston dating to the 1960s. More importantly, it sets a new policy in the works for months in which the administration will resist lawmakers' requests to view prosecutorial decision-making documents that have been routinely turned over to Congress in years past. Executive privilege is a doctrine recognized by the courts that ensures presidents can get candid advice in private without fear of its becoming public. The privilege, however, is best known for the unsuccessful attempts by former Presidents Nixon and Clinton to keep evidence secret during impeachment investigations. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales recommended Bush invoke the privilege earlier this fall. While invoking the privilege, Bush instructed Ashcroft to have the Justice Department ``remain willing to work informally with the committee to provide such information as it can, consistent with these instructions and without violating the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers.'' Burton's committee for months has been seeking Justice Department memos about prosecutors' decisions in cases involving the handling of mob informants in Boston, Democratic fund raising, a former Clinton White House official and a former federal drug enforcement agent. The committee subpoenaed Ashcroft, demanding those documents in the fall and scheduled a hearing Thursday to examine the Boston case. That case stems from revelations that Joseph Salvati of Boston spent 30 years in prison for a murder he did not commit even though the FBI had evidence of his innocence. Salvati was freed in January after a judge concluded that FBI agents hid testimony that would have cleared Salvati because they wanted to protect an informant. Several such memos were shared with Congress during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Most recently, in the 1990s, such documents were turned over to the Whitewater, fund-raising, pardons and impeachment investigations by lawmakers. But the concept of extending executive privilege to Justice Department decisions isn't new. During the Reagan years, the privilege was cited as the reason the department did not tell Congress about some memos in a high-profile environmental case. And Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, advised Clinton in 1999 that he could invoke the privilege to keep from disclosing documents detailing department views on 16 pardon cases.

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (45109)	12/14/2001 2:37:22 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Fortune Magazine on Why Enron Went Bust... fortune.com Start with arrogance. Add greed, deceit, and financial chicanery. What do you get? A company that wasn't what it was cracked up to be. _____________________________________________ Here's an interesting passage from the multi-page article... <<...In any conversation about Enron, the comparison with Long-Term Capital Management invariably crops up. In some ways, it looks as if the cost of the Enron debacle is far less than that of LTCM--far less than anyone would have thought possible, in fact (see next story). But in other ways the cost is far greater. Enron was a public company with employees and shareholders who counted on management, the board, and the auditors to protect them. That's why one senior Wall Streeter says of the Enron saga, "It disgusts me, and it frightens me." And that's why, regardless of how the litigation plays out, it feels as though a crime has been committed...>>