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To: chaz who wrote (470)	8/22/2002 5:29:10 PM
From: alanrs	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 562

Someone will surely tell me I have the freedom to avoid the suspect companies. Yes, I do, and I will try harder to do just that. But if I am being lied to, how will I know? Since I'm from the "vote with your feet" school, I may as well chime in. Unfortunately, outright fraud is very hard to guard against, and I have personally lost a fair amount of money on two occasions due to fraud-about 25K total. If I'm lucky and live that long I may someday see $500 of that as the result of law suits. Nobody will go to jail. For some reason I'm not able to fathom, petty theft warrants heavier penalties than most white collar crime. While it doesn't seem fair to me either, that still is the way it is. As for the other stuff, I guess every one needs to have an idea of their criteria for investing in a company. I tend to not invest in companies with multiple classes of stock (A & B shares, preferds, convertibles, what have you) although many people make a living investing in just these instruments. I also balk at egregious compensation, and would never invest in Disney, as one example among many, and would have a hard time holding on to a stock if the company repriced options or loaned management money to purchase stock. In the end, despite my personal feelings about all this, I recognize that my influence on how the markets are run is virtually zero. It has been my experience that my own psychology is far more important to me making money, and that if I concentrate on lifes' inequities I am further disadvantaging myself. While I feel that these subjects are perfectly legitimate topics of discussion, the endless harping doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose, and I feel the options expensing discussion has gone well into the endless harping stage. ARS

To: chaz who wrote (470)	8/22/2002 5:31:44 PM
From: hueyone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 562

Better, I believe, to simply grant shares, voted by the now independent board, and post the expense. There's no repricing possible. Option grants do not align management's interests with an investor's, and that's the major reason why I feel this way. With stock grants, all the mickey mouse about calculating the expense goes away. The abuse opportunity goes away. Thanks Chaz. This sounds like a very good idea and significant improvement over the current situation to me. I would further add that the stock grants could be in the form of restricted stock and they would still be expensed under current accounting rules. Best, Huey