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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (86766)	5/16/2004 7:18:31 AM
From: rrufff	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

You are exactly right that it is a cost of doing business. The only way this changes is if the license is pulled and they feel real hurt. When the class action industry was growing, the original dangerous and defective products cases brought about the discovery that car manufacturers actually made decisions not to, e.g., put a roll bar or reinforce an auto roof or to make a gas tank less likely to explode on light impact, by analyzing the cost of approximately $100 per car vs. the likelihood of a few million dollar recoveries. A few deaths or horrid injuries a year was considered less costly than spending that $100 per vehicle. For egregious manipulation of our financial markets, the very bedrock of a capitalist system, can one argue that brokerage licenses should be pulled? A death sentence for a business that causes billions of dollars in damages to those who depend on capitalist markets is not IMO too severe. An auction for the license would minimize the disruption, except for the stock of industry companies. As for individuals who plunder our public businesses, significant jail time for individuals and real tracing of assets would also go a long way towards eliminating much abuse. It always amazes me when corporate big wigs are able to pilfer 100's of millions, even walk away with severance packages after killing their stock value, and nary a peep is heard for taking back the loot. Why? Because it's hard work to trace and recover assets through layers of donees, trusts, charitable foundations, homesteads, etc. Fraud is almost always undoable to a large extent, IF the hard work is done to trace and seek its undoing. The reality is that if something is not in the headlines, such as the unfortunate celebrity of Martha Stewart or the enormity of a scam such as Enron or Worldcom, then smaller plunder of a measly billion or less, gets very little attention. See the Montana Power conversion to bankrupt Touch America for one that has largely slipped under the radar but has corporate executives rewarded on layer after layer of opportunism, incompetence and conflicts of interest.