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

To: RR who wrote (48451)	3/6/2002 11:48:16 PM
From: synchro_fan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

And have you watched Walmart WMT? Up quite a bit since the Kmart bit the dust. Just wondering when WMT is going to get into the grocery business? Hmmmmm wondering if they may be thinking about Loblaws up here in the great white North? I am quite happy with my gain and preservation of capital with WMT.

To: RR who wrote (48451)	3/6/2002 11:49:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Bush Plans Crackdown on Corporate Abuses Wednesday March 6, 10:55 pm Eastern Time By Adam Entous WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will propose on Thursday a sweeping plan to punish corporate executives who mislead investors in response to the collapse of Enron Corp., Bush's biggest financial backer in the 2000 campaign, the White House said. With Bush eager to distance himself and his administration from the scandal surrounding Enron and its auditor, accounting giant Andersen, the plan also would subject the accounting industry to unprecedented regulation. Bush will propose holding chief executive officers accountable by requiring them personally to attest each quarter to the accuracy of their financial statements and disclosures, according to White House documents. To punish accounting-related abuses, top executives would be forced under the plan to forfeit their bonuses and other compensation. In extreme cases, they could be barred from serving as officers or directors for other publicly held corporations. The Bush plan also would give top officers and directors two business days to disclose when they buy or sell company stock. Currently, corporate leaders can go as long as a year or more without disclosing personal transactions. To help investors, Bush would require companies to disclose more information between reporting periods. An independent regulatory board would oversee accounting firms, and Bush would place restrictions on services that could compromise their independence, White House officials said. 'PENALTIES FOR WRONGDOING SHOULD BE TOUGHER' ``I am calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take action,'' Bush said, according to experts of Thursday's speech. ``Existing regulations should be clearer, and penalties for wrongdoing should be tougher. Reform should improve investor confidence and help our economy grow,'' Bush added. ``Our goal is better rules so that conflict, suspicion and broken faith can be avoided in the first place.'' Some of Bush's proposals require legislative action. Congress, for example, would need to give the SEC the authority to ban individuals from serving as corporate officers or directors. The SEC currently needs court approval to act in certain cases. Ten congressional committees, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating Enron's collapse, which destroyed thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investor equity. An internal inquiry ordered by Enron's board alleged senior managers used off-the-books partnerships to hide losses, fool investors and enrich themselves. Enron's auditor, the Big Five accounting firm Andersen, has admitted making mistakes in its audits of what once ranked as America's seventh-largest corporation, which filed the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history on Dec. 2. Under Bush's plan, an independent regulatory board would be established under the supervision of the SEC to develop ''standards of professional conduct and competence'' for accounting firms. The board would have the power to monitor firms, investigate alleged abuses, and, when needed, enforce the standards by punishing accountants for violations, according to White House documents. An administration official said the board would be independent from the industry in both make-up and funding. Bush also will ask the SEC to establish guidelines to prohibit external auditors from performing other services to the same client if the service ``compromises the independence of the audit.'' Bush would limit other auditing functions, and require companies to disclose in greater detail all fees paid to auditing firms and their affiliates. Andersen has been sued by shareholders alleging the $25 million in auditing fees and $27 million in other fees it collected from Enron in 2000 biased its audit judgement. ALPHABET SOUP At the same time, Bush would direct the SEC to exercise more oversight over the Financial Accounting Standards Board to guarantee its independence and that industry standards are ''more responsive to the needs of investors, rather than based on the interests of professional accountants.'' At present, the accounting industry has an alphabet soup of self-regulatory groups, including the 330,000-member American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the standard-setting Financial Accounting Standards Board. Under Bush's plan, the SEC would expand the list of so-called ``significant events'' requiring companies to disclose information to investors between normal reporting periods. In addition, the Bush plan would boost corporate disclosure requirements to ensure that investors have quarterly access to ''the information needed to judge a firm's financial performance, condition and risks.''