To: mishedlo who wrote (179675 ) 7/14/2002 12:51:32 PM From: mishedlo Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 436258 Coke "Management has concluded that stock options are a form of employee compensation expense and, therefore, it is appropriate that these costs be reflected in our financial results," Coca-Cola Chief Executive Doug Daft said in a statement. The expensing of options, a lucrative corporate perk, has become a flash point in the United States in the wake of the recent accounting scandals at now-collapsed energy trader Enron Corp. and telecommunications firm WorldCom Inc. (WCOME) Many prominent business leaders, politicians and economists, including U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, share the view that options should be expensed to better reflect the financial health of corporations. Until Coca-Cola's announcement, most of corporate America had resisted changing the status quo, which allows companies to hand out millions of dollars worth of stock options with no impact on the most common measure of profitability.In a speech last week, U.S. President George W. Bush rejected forcing companies to begin expensing options, seeking instead measures that would ensure shareholders are allowed to vote on all option plans. ======================================================================= Bush is an industry insider whore. The best leader money could buy. Yeah let's let shareholders vote. Who controls the big blocks of votes (corporate insiders and mutual funds that do not want to take the earnings hits and want to hide reality from the public). While were at it let's vote to keep using pro-forma earnings as well. Let's vote on lots of accounting things so we have millions of votes and zero% results. M