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

To: Dealer who wrote (53648)	7/10/2002 10:20:08 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Ethical business needs more than cheerleading Seattle Times Editorial Wednesday, July 10, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific President George W. Bush made the best of a tough assignment, but restoring investor confidence in U.S. corporate leadership will take more than a speech. His talk before New York business leaders on Wall Street echoed a coach's pep talk to a troubled team. Missing was a hard-headed game plan. Investors whose stocks turned to dust and employees who lost lifetimes of work in depleted pension plans draw no solace from presidential pledges to seek a new era of integrity in corporate America. Bush is all for sending thieving corporate titans to prison for longer terms. Fine, but no one believes any one of the scoundrels from Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco, ImClone or WorldCom will ever see the inside of a prison cell. The president spent most of his speech urging, demanding and challenging corporate America to do better. He was strong on what CEOs should do, not what the government would do. Needed, for starters, are tougher rules and regulations to make corporate financial statements honest and accurate. None of the changes argue against rewarding entrepreneurial success or promoting innovation and creative thinking. Investors and employees want U.S. businesses to prosper, because they want to share in the proceeds. They bitterly resent being fleeced and played for suckers. Critics see the White House as an unskeptical ally of business at every turn. Up to a point, that is hardly a bad thing in a dynamic, market-driven economy. Bush supported a zero-growth budget for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yesterday, he said he would back a $100-million increase in the budget for enforcement. The president also should change his mind on a tough new regulatory board to monitor the accounting industry. Bush said he thinks the bill by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., might recreate regulatory overlaps. In light of the scandals, few would find that a problem. Some of these discussions will be awkward for the Bush White House, but the president needs to press ahead. Questions are being raised about his disposal of shares in Harken Energy Corp. when he served on the audit committee of the troubled Texas firm. Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton Co. when it adopted accounting methods now under SEC investigation. The real test is what happens next. The administration will be judged on what it does to set standards that eliminate confusion, punish deception and reduce temptation. Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company seattletimes.nwsource.com