Sorry I just wanted to respond to one more thing. The SEC didn't actually clear Bush of any wrong doing. They said the investigation was inconclusive. There is a difference. Anyway here's some more strange coincidences regarding Bush's 'character and dignity' in his business dealings. This is from the same NY Press article I gave the link too earlier in the thread.
Wow, fun stuff. A number of comments: <B>Regulations have been loose for a long time now. What regs would you want and would they pass Constitutional muster? A lack of regulation did not cause this. These companies broke already existing law. Having a new law or reg would not make the acts any more illegal. In response to what has happened, Bush intends to make the criminal penalties stiffer when these laws are broken.</B> A number of these companies that are currently being looked at haven't actually done anything illegal -- that's the problem. For example, recording $10 billion in revenues and $10 billion in expenses in a barter deal is perfectly acceptable in the current system, even though those revenues and expenses never occurred. A number of regulations that dealt with <I>some</I> (not all) of these issues were proposed under the Clinton Administration and were rejected by the Republican Congress. I believe several of these are now being accepted in the new proposals. I think the Republican Party does deserve some criticism here. In addition, Bush's choice for SEC chair was an industry person who fought quite a bit for FEWER regulations. Things that occured during Cheney's days at Halliburton are now under investigation. There's a credibility issue here -- the things that Bush is now crying out against are things that companies very close to him were very much involved in. As someone mentioned above, if a party gets credit for the positives of something they supported (de-regulation, in this case), they damn well should be criticized for the negatives of it. Surplus means they took too much of OUR hard earned money. Why shouldn't they give it to us? Dammit it was earned by us, not the governement. That is the ideological difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Dems in power believe that all money belongs to Washington and they let us keep what they see fit. Either that, or the Democrats accept the fact that during the 80's and half the 90's, the government as a whole racked up trillions of dollars in debt and that now the responsible thing to do is to STOP DOING THAT so our kids and grandkids won't have a massive debt that they are paying off for the rest of their lives. Republicans would rather give the money back now and continue paying $200 billion interest payments on forever. Of course, 10 years ago, Republicans & Democrats felt exactly the opposite... Bush's stock deal has been investigated by the SEC on more than one occasion and he was cleared of any wrongdoing. He played within the rules. First of all, he was never cleared - the investigation simply ended (coincidentally, his dad was President at the time). Second of all, the reason this has suddenly come up is NEW information that Bush's statements and those of his attorneys do not match up. Not surprisingly, he refuses to answer any questions about that. All Presidents take vacations....there is never a good time for the leader of the free world to take a vacation. They all need one, nevertheless. I assure you...he won't be turning off his cell phone on this trip! MadMax, the reason Bush's vacation is brought up so much is that last year, during a struggling economy and with lots of things to do on the table, he took the longest vacation of any President in history. I'm not making any judgements on whether it's right or wrong, but that's the reason it has become an issue.
We have a national debt of 6 trillion dollars. Interest on that debt is the second largest expenditure of our yearly federal budget. Time to use that surplus to pay OUR hard earned debt don't ya think?
I don't think I'll be able to convince my parents to invest their "Soc. Security money in the stock market" now....... BTW/ when I said I wanted a recount, you know I meant in Florida, right?
Remember: the stock market crash, accounting scandals, 9-11 attacks, depletion of the budget surplus, lack of a coherent middle east policy are all *Clinton's* fault. I believe that blow job started all of this, right? Liberal media, too.
Amazing... Eight years of prosperity turned to hell in a year and a half with a republican in office. Why am I not surprised? I'm actually glad this is happening, however, because there's no way that ****head is going to be re-elected. If he is, I'm fleeing the country to my liberal (in the American sense) country of Australia. Oh sh**, Australia is run by f***ing conservatives (in Oz, they're called "the liberal party") too! Life is miserable.
OK, seriously folks, when will it end? Divide, divide, divide. Yawn. So boooring. Here are the only "facts" i know: 1. Republicans suck 2. Democrats suck 3. Independents suck 4. Undecideds suck 5. I suck Now everybody shut up.
I agree, why Blame Bush, when the main figures to blame are the elite economist and Fed board raising interest rates in hopes of finally trying to "control" the economy. The Crediotrs hate inflation. Banks hate inflation. The elderly and their fixed annuities hate inflation. Greenspans portfolio until 2000 was comical, made up on underachieving bonds (compared to equities). His net rate of return after taxes and inflation was around 1%. Jobs were plentiful, venture capital was plentiful. Small business were in demand. People were quitting their jobs, starting up new business, hiring people to work, new hire's were able to buy more goods, and the circle was running fast strong and everyone was happy. CEO's were responding to demand by expanding, hiring more, planning to keep there company ahead of the curb. Life was great IPOS were selling off the hook, giving them needed capital for additonal research, employees, facilities, circle spinning faster and stronger, inflation is increasing becuase to much growth to soon, becuase coroporate american and entrepreurs have yet to catch up yet. IF ONLY THE eltitist economists of the country would not freak out and raise the fed rate up. But they cant handle the inflation, becuase in their minds anything over 4% is to much. RASIE RATE, no response, RAISE RATES, no responses, they continued raising rates until companies were bogged so freaking down not only rising energy costs but also OPEC, ENRON, Etc gouging everyone,thus, the cost of goods just went up the freaking roof. So a few layoffs begin to reduce expenses. Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Merly Lynch help gouge their gullible silly clients selling them shell companies owned by 23 y/o kids who are now going to sale kit kits over the internet. NASDQ is sold to clients as if their manhood hung upon owning it. As the dotcom companies run out of money purchasing commerical space, the dotcom crash begins. I would say the dotcom crash was similar to the Crash prior to the great depression. Companies that basically never wore, now are literally gone. $125 million of capital, and all thats left is a domain name, a server, and some office supplies. Worst part, these BS internet companies never produced nothing to keep our perfect little economic circle running. So add in the underwriters into the mix, along with the energy companies, OPEC and the fed board. D@mn, anyone notice all of these "persons" aside from the fed has gone through some type of tradegy for their sins?? One layoff, leads to thousands, and now the poor investor poorly conditioned for market cycles pulls cash out. Some investors have my pity, others deserved to get burnt simply becuase they were greedy. People will buy from a lying stock-broker over a honest broker 99 times out of 100. They want to hear someone promise a 30% rate of return. So I don't feel sorry for everyone selling out of their NASDQ index after getting in at 3800 becuase the broker promised them 6000 within a year. The president although is flawed, is not to blame for what is going on now (unless you want to hit him on the energy sector). Blame Clinton for Bin Laden. Blame the economists that worked so hard to stop inflation, to now get off their butts and bring back what they help influence to tear apart. A good idea for another post is "How to return to the economy to post Mar 2000 form." I didn't proof read this, so I aplogize for the mistakes. And just read this for entertain purposes also. I don't expect anyone to agree with my assessment
You are on to something here. I have 2 quick points to make: 1) Do ANY of you really believe that these corporate scandals started 18 months ago? The things these companies are doing were started up during Clinton's watch. Rather than demonize Bush, let's start a new conspiracy theory that Clinton looked the other way so the market could be overinflated to help Gore in 2000. 2) Anybody who knows the first thing from economics 101 knows that when a market is overinflated in value, there will eventually be a correction. I hate to tell ya that with the dotcoms in the 1990s, the market became GROSSLY overvalued. Now it's being corrected. History shows that this will come to pass and the market will become strong once again.
Why blame Bush? Because it happened under his watch. Right or wrong, fact or fiction, overly simplistic, that's just how it is. Now Johnson & Johnson is having problems. The corporate hemorrhaging is not going to stop anytime soon, just watch. Being in the right place at the right time was great for Bush in the beginning. But as he's finding out now, being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a b****! Maybe this is just a case of a "market correction" that's happening with Dubya's regime?
I have 2 quick points to make: 1) Do ANY of you really believe that these corporate scandals started 18 months ago? The things these companies are doing were started up during Clinton's watch. Rather than demonize Bush, let's start a new conspiracy theory that Clinton looked the other way so the market could be overinflated to help Gore in 2000. The problem is the Clinton did propose changes to the system and the Republican Congress rejected them ("too much regulation"). They certainly wouldn't have dealt with all of these problems, but it would have helped some. It's not so much Bush except that he's the "symbol" of corporate America. His SEC chairman's goal when he was hired was to make the SEC friendlier to business. That gives neither the people nor the stock market much confidence. Most of us wouldn't trust Clinton as an authority on marriage fidelity, and similarly, some people have trouble trusting Bush as an authority on business ethics. 2) Anybody who knows the first thing from economics 101 knows that when a market is overinflated in value, there will eventually be a correction. I hate to tell ya that with the dotcoms in the 1990s, the market became GROSSLY overvalued. Now it's being corrected. History shows that this will come to pass and the market will become strong once again. Except that this has gone well-beyond that. For one, it's not just the dot-coms being pummelled back to reality -- that took care of itself long ago. It's the regular, more stable companies that are getting hit. Also, the markets are down to 1997 levels -- that's way before the dot-com craze went nuts in 1999-2000. If the markets stay on course this year, it will be the first 3-year losing streak for the markets since the Great Depression. This isn't your average stock market correction.
Damn, you beat me to it major. Harvey Pitt (sp) was hired to go easier on business, and he too was against the various bills the Clinton administration proposed to regulate corporations.
You can't really say that this isn't just a correction because the stock market had not ever been so overinflated. What foes up must come down and what goes WAY up will also eventually fall back to earth. Remember Greenspan stating early in 2000 about irrational exuberance? This is the result when the exuberance dies. There were companies trading at 40 to 50 times earnings. You can't expect that to last forever. And now earning are not as much either. It compounds the problem. Remember it was excessive regulation and bonehead economic policy that turned a normal recession into the Great Depression. I have actually seen it worked out graphically by a professor of economics.
