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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (39899)	3/19/2004 9:59:24 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 89467

The Insiders' Magic Way to Sell SEC Investigates Securities Firms That Used Derivatives Contracts To Help Executives Trade Quietly By RANDALL SMITH and JESSE EISINGER THE WALL STREET JOURNAL-March 19, 2004; Page C1 The Securities and Exchange Commission, suspecting that numerous corporate insiders may have sold stock in the past six years without proper disclosure to investors, has asked financial firms for data on their transactions with such executives, according to people familiar with the inquiry. In a "Street sweep," the agency's enforcement division has asked more than a dozen Wall Street securities firms for details on exotic derivatives contracts used since the start of 1998. These contracts were used to hedge or sell the stock positions of the corporate insiders such as corporate officers, directors and holders of more than 10% of a stock. At issue is how corporate insiders use derivatives -- which are contracts whose value rises or falls based on an underlying stock, bond, currency or index -- to allow them to take gains on their holdings of company stock without immediately selling their shares in the open market.

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (39899)	3/19/2004 10:16:25 AM
From: Crocodile	Respond to of 89467

The Bush Administration's systematic assault on the Clean Water Act, one of the nation's most important environmental laws, has included weakening programs that maintain water quality, huge cuts in funding for water protection, and reduced enforcement of regulations. A somewhat similar thing happened in the province of Ontario under the Conservative government of Premier Mike Harris. Water quality programs were privatized and monitoring programs and research were hit with major funding cuts. We had the Walkerton incident, which then led to a lengthy public enquiry, in which the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (Gord Miller), clearly identified severe weaknesses in the system brought on by government cutbacks. The Conservatives got booted out in the recent provincial election. The incoming Liberal government has toughened up regulations, initiated extensive watershed protection and water quality assurance programs. We've definitely seen what can happen when the public becomes aware of water quality failures -- it results in a very serious and unforgiving backlash against those responsible for the breakdown. Btw, water-related health incidents happen all of the time in the North America, but we rarely hear about them. I used to have a bookmark to a website where incidents in the U.S. were posted as investigated. The number of incidents is really quite an eye-opener. Regarding water quality monitoring -- the problem is that monitoring tends to uncover many things that the government and industry would rather not know about, such as the kinds of chemicals that can leach from land-applied sewage sludge (biosolids), or leaching from dumps, old wrecking yards, toxic waste disposal sites, etc.. that then find their way into watersheds along with other releases from public and industrial sources. Before too much longer, I expect that people will be taking a very hard look at a wide range of contaminants besides mercury that are ending up in the water system -- typically things like PBDE (a flame retardant) which is being found in growing levels in water, fish, humans. Researchers have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding what these substances are, how they get into watersheds, and what kind of health problems such contaminants will incur. Meanwhile, the population continues to explode, the amount of contaminants going into watersheds increases, and the beat goes on... More on PBDE for those who might be interested: pubs.acs.org enn.com