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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (96692)	7/16/2002 2:20:36 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

YZ, Bob Novak is always a hoot. However, among the right wingers, he is one of the few who actually has integrity and is willing to stand by what he says and writes. I disagree with him about most things, but I respect him. And every once in a while he gets liberal enough to be correct about something. <g> First, I agree that Congress is dangerous when they interfere in business. Most members are totally ignorant of basic economic theory and the concept of markets. (Isn't that where Granddaddy put the trust funds? <g>) However, where I would disagree is that letting businessmen run wild is at least as dangerous, if not more so. People do not think that businessmen are a bunch of crooks because they suddenly woke up in a bad mood. CEOs have committed illegal acts, and when they couldn't work up the gumption for that, unethical acts, and when they couldn't even go that far, misleading acts. This isn't a few bad apples, as Dubya preaches to the choir. Most cos. got caught up in the sleaze. If you weren't padding earnings, either illegally, unethically, or misleadingly, you were left behind by the bubble of the 90s. Which often meant you were either fired or didn't earn what your shadier peers were earning. Some were either honest enough, scared enough or rich enough to avoid the shenanigans, but they were in the minority. That is why cos. like Expeditors International, which pokes fun at earnings scams in its entertaining and uplifting quarterly reports, is treated as a lovable rogue. Lying about eps won a respectable title during the 90s: pro forma. So, the businessmen are crooks or at least not somebody you would trust to hold your wallet while you took a dip in the pool. Congress is a bunch of financial non-entities. So, the burden falls on the Executive Branch, where it belongs. Unfortunately, we have one of those "keep your hands on your wallets" types in the White House and another one serving as VP. So, we can't leave the hen house in the charge of the foxes. We need Teddy Roosevelt and we have Rosey Ruiz. <g> Of the three bad alternatives: allowing the crooks to continue to rip off the investing and working public, trusting the President to fix things, or letting Congress get involved where it has no competence, Congress is the least bad. So, Bob Novak is wrong, though I sure hear where he's coming from.