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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (31427)	7/12/2006 4:32:22 PM
From: Return to Sender	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 95647

Making Insider Trading Legal in Corporate Management \| Politics bigpicture.typepad.com I'm still digging out from what I missed while on vacation, but this obscure speech from SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins last week could not go unreported on. Jesse Eisinger rightly calls out this absurdity by a man who's job is ostensibly protecting investors: "SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins gave a bizarre speech yesterday, defending the practice of "spring-loading" stock options, or issuing options ahead of good news. At a corporate governance forum in Washington, Mr. Atkins said, "It is cheaper to pay a person with well-timed options than with cash," adding that spring-loading is OK because no one is harmed. "It benefits shareholders because fewer stock options are granted." Yeah? Doesn't he have to provide some evidence for this contention? Is there one real-life example where insiders were granted fewer options than they otherwise would have been because they knew the stock price would rise quickly afterwards? The absurdity of his argument is exposed by the fact that companies have not made clear and timely disclosure of their spring-loaded grants. If there is no problem with spring-loading, then what were they hiding? Damon Silvers, associate general counsel at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations in Washington, whose members hold more than $400 billion of union-sponsored pension funds, had a devastating rebuttal, as quoted in a Bloomberg article yesterday: "It's also true that if you let your employees steal from the cash register, you don't have to pay them that much." It has long been a fringe, extremist, free-marketer view that insider trading should be legal, and Atkins seems to be parroting it. Is this who investors really want as an SEC commissioner? You can learn more about Commissioner Paul S. Atkins at the SEC site. sec.gov Nice to know the men in charge of regulating the Securities industry are hacks or fools -- neither an appetizing choice.