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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: regli who wrote (50946)	1/23/2006 2:09:56 PM
From: shades	Respond to of 110194

I don't think you'd want to take the car from Milan to Rome, Naples or Messina in order to do business. Air transportation and therefore a viable alternative has to be assured between key industrial hubs before they will let it go under. I just pick up my cell phone if I want to do business or click a mouse - all this moving around of executive molecules from point a to point b is highly inefficient in the world of the MATRIX if you ask me. Imagine if we all had to meet in a room in new york to share ideas - not possible. =DJ UPDATE: NASD, NYSE Propose Rule Changes On Entertainment . (Updates to add additional background, comments from NYSE, professor.) Jaime Levy Pessin Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The NASD and New York Stock Exchange on Monday unveiled proposed rules governing how much brokerage firms can spend on business entertainment. The proposals to the Securities and Exchange Commission come in the wake of a high-profile regulatory probe over brokerage firms wining and dining corporate clients to win their business. The NASD and NYSE submitted separate rule proposals to the SEC, but said they worked together to craft the rules. The rules do not impose specific dollar limits for business entertainment, but instead require firms to establish their own policies for what is acceptable. They will have to set dollar limits, or establish guidelines for expenses that would require advance written approval. Member firms will have to keep detailed records of business entertainment expenses and make those lists available to customers. Mutual-fund companies are supposed to consider service and price when they pick which brokerage firms to use. But in an atmosphere of intense competition, brokerage firms have long lavished clients with sports and entertainment tickets, expensive wines and trips to ritzy locations. Although both the NASD and NYSE set a $100 limit for gifts, rules for entertainment are much hazier. "The rule is intended to ensure no improper quid pro quos, that they're not unduly influencing customers to send business to the firm," said Grace Vogel, executive vice president for member firm regulation at the NYSE. Vogel said she expected firms to establish relatively comparable dollar limits, making it easier for regulators to spot policies that are out of line. She said regulators would consider a firm's geography and business model when evaluating their policies. "What might be lavish in Wichita might be enough to buy you a hamburger and French fries in New York," she said. In a high-profile case of egregious spending, the NASD and SEC last year investigated a bachelor party for a Fidelity Investments trader, paid for in part by Wall Street brokerage firms competing for Fidelity's business. The party included a private jet, a yacht cruise and a dwarf-tossing event. Bull markets create especially intense competition for clients, spawning an environment where lavish entertainment becomes the norm, said Roy Smith, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and a former Goldman Sachs partner. "In bull markets, where competition is high,... we all end up in strip clubs for some reason," he said. "If I were running a Wall Street firm, I wouldn't particularly like employees taking customers out to unseemly places and spending disproportionate amounts," he said. Brokers might welcome the rules, pointing to them to bow out of paying for more outrageous escapades, Smith said. "We'd all prefer to have less regulation, and we'd all prefer to have employees who do not need to be restrained," he said. But "sometimes self-restraint doesn't do it." The comments period on the proposed rules expires Feb. 23. -By Jaime Levy Pessin; Dow Jones Newswires, 201-938-4546; jaime.pessin@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires January 23, 2006 13:54 ET (18:54 GMT) Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.- - 01 54 PM EST 01-23-06 Brought to you by Scottrader, a product of Scottrade Inc