Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kvkkc1 who wrote (60420)	7/24/2002 11:23:09 AM
From: Stock Farmer	Respond to of 77400

Woah there... I'm not accusing anyone of false accounting. Just responding to your phrase: So this asinine options accounting would have screwed them to the wall with false expenses. Perhaps I should have said "false expenses?"... As for the rest? Yea, actually I'm in your camp on the futility of laws. We can stick as many big flourescent labels on aluminum step ladders as we want and people will still stand on the top rung and reach six feet over to the right to clean out their gutters. As for wall street pushing stuff and jiggering the rules to their advantage? Do people really think banks are charities??? The secondary market for equities (stock market) is no different than a gigantic used car lot. Treated with the same scepticism one can get a lot utility out of someone else's second hand vehicle. John

To: kvkkc1 who wrote (60420)	7/24/2002 3:35:37 PM
From: RetiredNow	Respond to of 77400

Now there's a good hunk of truth in the second half of your post. Who cares how many laws we pass, if we don't plan on prosecuting anyone? Every day that Kenneth Lay walks around as a free and rich man is a day that I think U.S. corporations are in bed with Congress and they're all as rotten as hell. Washington can fix things, though, if they cared to. It's very simple. Make tough laws and enforce them. One good law to start with would be a law based on the McCain bill on stock options accounting as an expense in the income statement.

To: kvkkc1 who wrote (60420)	7/24/2002 6:31:04 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 77400

re: "who cares......if they don't prosecute anybody." Exactly. Behavioral studies have shown that punishment does not need to be severe, in order to be effective in preventing bad behavior. Rather, punishment needs to be swift and certain. Increasing the jail time for selling cocaine, from 5 to 50 years, achieves nothing, as long as only a tiny fraction of dope-sellers are arrested and jailed. It also achieves nothing, if the dope-sellers helped put the judges in office, and if the dope-sellers and police regularly switch jobs with each other, and are good friends. A good analogy, IMO, for the Creative Accounting problem.