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To: Lucretius who wrote (181730)	7/21/2002 1:38:32 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Someone needs to tell Dick...the Terrorists have already won!<NG> BTW, we're now 28 months post the bubble "bursting", and how many SPX-500 or NDX-100 CEO's or CFO's have seen a day of prison time yet? Zero by my count...<NFG> quote.bloomberg.com 07/21 13:21 Grasso Urges War on Boardroom `Terrorism' to Bolster Markets By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Amy Strahan Butler Washington, July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Corporate executives who commit financial fraud should be imprisoned as a necessary step to help restore investor confidence in the markets, New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso said. ``We've got to wage a war against terrorism in the boardroom,'' Grasso said on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' two days after the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled almost 400 points to 8019.26, its lowest point in four years. ``Those who have broken the law, those who have in essence misused the public's trust have got to go to jail.'' This year, the Dow is off 20 percent, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 is down 26 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has fallen 32 percent. The stock declines, wiping out billions of dollars in market value, followed Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and other companies disclosing improper accounting. Grasso and others on Wall Street said closer scrutiny of corporate financial data, bolstered by a law advancing in Congress, and a sound economy will eventually push stock prices back up. That recovery may not start tomorrow, they said. ``It's always darkest before the dawn,'' said Grasso, who is also chief executive officer of the NYSE, the world's biggest stock exchange. ``Mondays following Friday declines have always been difficult, and I suspect tomorrow will be no different.'' More Optimism Abby Joseph Cohen, managing director of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was more optimistic about a market rebound. ``Stocks are priced too cheaply,'' Cohen said on CBS's ``Face the Nation.'' ``The pendulum's swung too far in the opposite direction, and over a long period of time stock prices are going to be higher, not lower.'' Closer scrutiny of corporate accounting will help restore investor confidence, Cohen said. ``In the second half of the year, these numbers are going to be very, very clean,'' she said. Cohen and Grasso praised the Securities and Exchange Commission for requiring CEOs and chief financial officers of companies with revenue of more than $1.2 billion to swear an oath to the accuracy of annual reports and other filings. Grasso said he doesn't expect many reversals of financial profit statements after Aug. 14, when those pledges are due. He predicted corporate executives will be ``jumping at the opportunity to prove their statements are clean.'' Political Fallout The stock market's decline has become an issue on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are questioning the business practices of President George W. Bush as a director of Harken Energy Corp. a decade ago and Vice President Dick Cheney as chairman and CEO of Halliburton Co. in the late 1990s. ``People have lost confidence,'' said Senator John Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat and a potential presidential candidate. ``I think they worry about whether this president and his administration are seeing things through the eyes of CEOs.'' Edwards said Bush ``has not yet embraced strong corporate reform.'' A White House spokesman had no immediate comment on Edwards's statement. Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, accused Edwards and other Democrats of dragging up old business transactions by Bush at Harken and Cheney at Halliburton to further political ends. ``This is what happens when you have a lot of Democrats -- half the Senate -- running for president,'' Nickles said on ``Face The Nation.'' ``A lot of people are playing politics; they're ganging up.'' Bush Proposals Earlier this month, Bush proposed doubling the prison time for executives convicted of fraud and established a task force to press federal probes into corporate wrongdoing. Other Bush proposals include forbidding company loans to corporate officers and requiring immediate disclosure of insider stock sales. Bush has faced criticism for accepting a loan while a director of Harken and missing deadlines for filing reports on his sale of stock by as much as eight months. Cheney has encountered questions over Halliburton's accounting practices. Nickles said an accounting bill under consideration by a congressional conference committee shouldn't be counted on to help the stock market rebound. ``I don't think it will help the market,'' Nickles said ``We'll get a good bill out, but I don't think it'll rescue the market.'' House and Senate lawmakers began Friday negotiating differences in corporate accountability bills passed by the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate.