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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (52976)	3/22/1999 5:33:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Skeets, Nope. The SEC sent out letters about accounting scams that boost reported income. Nobody will say what was in them, but I find it interesting that the three worst abusers of put warrants, Dell, Microsoft and Intel all stopped selling them late last year and have said they have no plans to sell new ones. Of course, they never admitted that it was a scam nor did they say they wouldn't try to wag the eps dog again in the future. They just voluntarily stopped. <VBG> BTW, though he may be too modest to take credit for it, our old pal Earlie was one of the first whistle blowers on this one. Microsuck went after him with both barrels, so if you see him running through the streets like "The Fugitive," you'll know why. <g> I wonder what new accounting flim flam the companies will try now to boost their eps beyond what operations can give them? There is simply no way these guys have the operating cash flow to sustain the silly high valuations, so slick tricks have been the flavor of the decade. And the SEC is a toothless tiger as far as these large firms are concerned. They may beat the crap out of Tokyo Crimson, or whatever his name is, but when they face a herd religion stock, they are pretty meek. And the offending and offensive firms have not gotten rid of the put warrants already issued, so they continue to garner interest on this bit of smoke and mirrors. MB