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.

Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (22916)	9/15/2003 11:45:17 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 93284

The intent was there.....little over zealous on the headline...thank goodness I was wrong on the actual wounded.... Another soldier killed today.....damn...and a police chief.....Bush is now realizing what it means to be in a hole alone.....no arab support is really gonna be the ultimate problem CC

To: KonKilo who wrote (22916)	9/15/2003 11:47:24 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 93284

Amen to this push: Former NYSE chairman calls for clean sweep of boardroom Monday September 15, 9:18 pm ET By Meg Richards, AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) -- A former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange joined critics in calling for a clean sweep of the boardroom as the best way of quelling the growing storm over chairman Dick Grasso's lavish pay package. The exchange's directors, who are considering ways to ease outrage over the $139.5 million Grasso received in accrued benefits and savings, were expected to call a meeting later this week. James Needham, a retired accountant who was NYSE chairman from 1972 to 1976, said everyone associated with the decision should step down, including Grasso. "It's time to clean house," Needham, who also served on the Securities and Exchange Commission, said Monday. "I feel the board just didn't step up to the plate and run that operation properly." He said he has shared his views with Grasso and SEC chairman William Donaldson, who raised sharp questions about the pay package after it was announced last month. The SEC is currently reviewing the NYSE's response. Needham likened the appearance of the board's handling of Grasso's pay to the problems at Enron Corp., where directors' conflicts of interest and a lack of awareness of company operations became evident when that company collapsed in scandal in 2001. "It's nothing easy for me to say, because I think he's the best chairman the exchange has had, including me," Needham said. "But ... in that position, you have to look reasonably perfect." Traders and seatholders were said to be circulating one or more petitions seeking big changes in top management at the NYSE. The matter was expected to be discussed at a meeting of active seatholders on Thursday and at a general meeting next month. Several directors have privately expressed strong views as well, particularly newer members who are said to have been unaware of how much was promised to Grasso in contracts negotiated during the stock market's giddy rise in the late 1990s. Even after Grasso announced he would forgo an additional $48 million disclosed last week, opinions seemed mixed as to whether he should be ousted. Few have criticized the job performance of Grasso, 57, who started his career at the exchange as a floor clerk in 1968. He was the only candidate for the top post when Donaldson left in 1995. Grasso is credited for brokering a truce between the securities industry, the SEC and the office of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over the investigation of research conflicts last year. But he also has been criticized for holding too much sway over the NYSE's 27-member board of directors, which includes the three top executives, 12 representatives from the securities industry and 12 from outside the industry, all hand-picked by Grasso. Potential conflicts were revealed this year, prompting several changes as the NYSE took steps to conform with new governance rules applied to public companies after a streak of corporate scandals. In June, the top three executives announced they would leave board positions they held at public companies traded on the NYSE. "Is it any wonder that these guys are so well paid, if they're approving each others' salaries?" asked Austin Brentley, manager of corporate governance affairs at the Council of Institutional Investors, an organization of large public, labor funds and corporate pension funds. In a July report, the council outlined a number of troubling connections among NYSE management and board members, and found few rules to prevent conflicts. Whether the chairman influenced decisions over his compensation -- and Grasso has insisted he didn't -- the arrangement smells rotten, said Nell Minow, editor of The Corporate Library, a private group that monitors governance issues. "If you asked me what's the best guarantee we'll have some kind of pay abuse, I'd say first you let the CEO pick all of his directors, and then you make it so they don't have to disclose his pay," Minow said. "It's a recipe for disaster." Minow said the most urgent reform needed at the NYSE was a complete overhaul of how board members are selected for their two-year terms to ensure that the process employs the same level of disclosure required for public companies, possibly with SEC oversight. CC

To: KonKilo who wrote (22916)	9/15/2003 11:48:47 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Speaking of hiding the truth: Indefinite Delay on Weapons Report The London Advertiser Monday 15 September 2003 LONDON: The US and Britain have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The London-based Sunday Times newspaper said inspectors had found no evidence any such arms exist. Efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons had so far ended in failure. The newspaper reported British defence intelligence sources had confirmed that the group's final report had been delayed and may not even be published. It had been expected a progress report would be published today. Meanwhile, in Geneva, Switzerland, the five major UN powers failed to agree on a formula for post-war Iraq, as a major disagreement persisted between the Bush administration and France over how fast to turn back power to a new Iraqi government. The outcome of the meeting between the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Russia and the US appeared to be a setback for the White House's efforts to gain greater international backing for the troubled Iraq reconstruction effort. -------CC