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To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19033)	5/17/2002 4:19:08 PM
From: Snowshoe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

May the farce be with you... In a galaxy far, far away, an evil Deathstar ruined the lives of multitudes, and decimated their 401Ks By Mark Fiore salon.com

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19033)	5/17/2002 7:28:02 PM
From: pezz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<<I kid you not. We are in one cynical time. It has gotten so out of control that our children know the game was rigged.>> Of course Ray human nature being what it is this can and is used as an excuse for failure. I am amazed as I read some of the Yahoo boards how every one has half a dozen claiming that the only reason they are loseing is due to those damn cheatin MM's.... What percent of corporate America do you see as overpaid self servin, cheatin, bastids? .....And I ain't talkin only the illegal Enrons . I include those who play games legally but unethically....

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19033)	5/17/2002 11:33:59 PM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Its a point worth considering, what the degredation of general morality does to expectations. That causes a house of cards to fall, ruining the culture, health, arts and commerce, all at once. Ok, so that's not just investments. But Bush Inc. is a good proxy for those ills, just look at the scorecard, the economy, general morality in business, religion, politics, and even how people interact in small ways in daily life, as you noted. Optimistic generalists (like me, anyway) like to think it's all connected, and if we straighten at least the most blatant sources of corruption, the good human spirit of America and elsewhere is waiting to slowly poke its head up from the rubble and see if the anti-moral radiation level is below 20 millirems, yet. Prediction:if Bush Inc. is taken to the woodshed in a big way, (a)the stock market will boom, (b)economy will rise much faster, (c)finally, some good people will get into politics for the right reason, and a new golden age will have a chance. Reading that back to myself, I'd have to say optimism on steroids. We'll see in the next few months -- either a human cataclysm or impeachment.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (19033)	5/18/2002 1:31:27 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<I think I can back off railing regarding how rotten the American corporate culture is getting. > Raymond, I'm all for slating the USA where needed, however, rotten corporate culture isn't high on my list. Also, as with race and the individual, corporate culture is a matter for individual companies - not all, or even most, individual people or companies can be squeezed into a stereotype. Individual companies are a function of the people running them and the laws and enforcement cultures that surround them. USA corporate culture is better than that of other countries and QUALCOMM is, as far as I can tell, the best corporate culture on earth. That's why I invest in the USA in general and QUALCOMM in particular. I also admire $ill Gates' and Warren Buffett. Those people are admirable. They are the high priests of American corporate culture. Yes, there are outright criminal corporate bosses in the USA. But they actually go to gaol if caught. In many other countries, the laws bend a long way and few corporate bosses go to gaol. The value created for the world through American corporate culture is spectacular. An important input into corporate culture in the USA is the legal system. Texaco was ripped apart by a judge a couple of decades ago. Exxon too. In my time in BP I used to argue that BP should pay a LOT of attention to environmental liability because having acquired Sohio [and recently other companies], they were to a large extent an American company and should expect to be sued in the USA for damages, negligence etc for actions or lack of actions around the world. For example, BP was selling a neurotoxin, lead, which was purported to be fit for people to put in their cars as fuel. The lead sprayed out the back and poisoned and damaged childrens' developing brain, resulting in an average IQ deficit of about 0.2 IQ points [which doesn't sound much, but the value of that is actually huge when the numbers are understood, especially when the lack of benefit from lead is considered]. There were also benzene and other health and environmentally damaging consequences of selling BP products. I considered it a serious risk that the USA would sue BP for damaging childrens' brains, causing leukaemia, dissolving buildings [SOX emissions], burning people alive with high volatility fuels, not to mention frying the world with CO2 entrapment of heat. I'm pleased to say that BP has more or less adopted my philosophies on that stuff. In the 1980s, they had a hard time 'getting it'. Anyway, an important driver of the corporate culture is the USA legal system which forces companies to be very careful about any damaging activities or lack of activities they indulge. My driving force was an ethical approach. But I couldn't suggest to BP that we just leave the lead out of petrol. That would mean BP petrol would be too expensive and although women would buy it [if they were aware of the lack of lead and that it was a damaging thing to have in petrol] because they [generally] are prepared to pay more [of their husband's efforts] to have things nice and civilized. Males tend to be more barbaric and self-interested. BP would be sanctimonious and broke. The answer was to promote to governments legislative changes to require all companies to meet government-set environmental standards for community protection. I don't think the oil companies have quite gone that far yet, but they are better than they were. BP seems to be actively promoting community protection these days and investing in solutions. John Browne, the boss, seems to be doing it right and my congratulations to him. I hope an echo from my pressure was instrumental [years later] in forming that approach. The laws force the culture and the threat of lawsuits keeps the corporate world in line. Not all companies and individuals have to be kept in line - plenty of people are ethical, including corporate bosses. Those people need protection from companies which are unethical. I think cynicism, or at least skepticism, is always good to have close at hand. Well, there's a rant! Mqurice