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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (587214)	7/3/2004 10:06:03 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"I will take your word for the role of Clinton in accounting honesty." No need to 'take my word' for anything, Neo... the historical facts can easily be verified on Google. As I explained, the F.A.S.B (Accounting Standards Board), the S.E.C. under Chairman Levitt, and with the official support (numerous testimonies before Congressional committees, etc.) of the Clinton administration (Treasury Secretary Rubin, etc.) and Fed Chair. Greenspan, all strongly supported reform of accounting expensing rules to mandate that --- when a tax deduction is taken for same --- that stock option grants be expensed on a company's annual reports. This much needed reform would have headed off the 'Bubble' before it ever happened, but the multi-year reform effort (early nineties) was killed by various Fat Cats and their bought-and-paid-for Congressional backers. As I said in my previous post: 'At the forefront of this group of campaign contribution sicophants were Lieberman, Dodd, Breaux, and DeLay, among many others. Even so, the reform effort nearly came off --- it went down to the wire before it was spiked. Clinton and his SEC Chairman Levitt fought the 'good fight' over several years for accounting honesty, but were narrowly defeated by entrenched financial interests.' "What about the role of Clinton and Gore in encouraging the bubble in the first place?" WHAT role? Any politician would welcome a booming stock and bond market on their watch... but they have little directly to do with it. You aren't claiming that --- if the markets boomed right now --- Bush wouldn't be pleased as punch, are you? The Fed operates officially independently, not subject to WH control (for very good reasons). It may be said that Greenspan played a 'double game'... first doing the right thing in backing accounting reform... then failing to warn about the risks of over-valued equities (not really his job, though) with his infamous 'this time it's different' claptrap. His late nineties monetary policy really pumped up the nascent bubble, then popped it (but the free tax deduction for unexpensed equity options laid the groundwork), as I said: 'It was Greenspan who initiated the massive flood of monetary liquidity in the Y2K run-up period... and then aggressively tightened it up afterwards, precipitating the bubble's pricking.'

To: Neocon who wrote (587214)	7/3/2004 5:39:00 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<What about the role of Clinton and Gore in encouraging the bubble in the first place?>> What role was that? Allowing the free market to operate? Is it your view that without the bubble and collapse the expansion would've continued indefinitely? What brought down the 80's expansion? What Democrat do you blame for that? Don't you think that like the railroad, automobile, and television bubbles which came when they were emerging technologies that this internet bubble which allocated a lot of resources to another important, emerging technology will have been good for our economy in the long run? Steve Dietrich