http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/08/news/pitt.reut/index.htm Well, Harvey Pitt finally messed up too big for Bush to ignore. He took someone who was an auditor for a company that had committed fraud and put him as the head of an oversight board ... then failed to mention that little part of the guy's background to the rest of the SEC. Bright guy. Now, the question is who replaces him. On CNN a few days ago, they mentioned that the SEC guy who dismissed the insider trading case against Bush (when Bush Sr. was Pres) without ever interviewing the major players or reading the major pieces of evidence is on the short-list. If he's selected, this is sure to generate faith in the markets.
Pitt is a brilliant guy. Some people just have a harder time making the transition to a post with such a spotlight on it. Especially when they come from positions where they have more autocratic leeway.
Pitt is a brilliant guy. Some people just have a harder time making the transition to a post with such a spotlight on it. Especially when they come from positions where they have more autocratic leeway. Yeah, he may very well be good at what he does. He just has very little political sense - so much of the SEC is about credibility, and he had credibility issues due to his background. Then he pulled a stunt like this and that just sunk him. We need someone in there who's scandal-free.
I've read that it may be Guiliani. Don't have a link, but go to www.politicalwire.com and it should be on there somewhere.
New York AG Elliot Spitzer, the man who stepped up where Pitt failed, is far and away the best choice unfortunately it will never happen. It would be a nice gesture for Bush to make good on his Uniter not Divider pledge but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
Just because you are a uniter does not mean that you appoint people to important positions when you disagree with them on roughly everything.
Maybe Bush can put in one of the ex-auditors from Arthur Anderson. Whoever it is must promise to protect Cheney on the Halliburton things. Pitts might be highly intelligent, but he was widely known to have been against much SEC oversight and that is why he was appointed. If you want to be a partisan Democrat, I guess you can hope that Bush will try this tact again. As a middle age person who wants some protection for his retirement accounts I would hope that he would put in someone who won't be afraid to step on some corportate toes.
I hardly think you or I have enough evidence to state that Bush or Spitzer "disagree on roughly everything", unless you are implying that BUsh doesn't want to prosecute corporate wrongdoers.
Cheney has been investigated more than once on his Halliburton dealings and has been cleared of any wrongdoing. The horse is dead...feel free to stop kicking. As for oversight...how much oversight did the SEC provide under the Clinton administration? Oh that's right...NONE. The laws were on the books and yet Enron and Worldcom were doing all of their accounting magic during his administration. The Dems aren't going to protect you any more than the Republicans are. The Dems like the corporate money too.
Good point...rephrased as having major ideological differences with. Bush has already shown a desire to prosecute these guys. Look at the charges Fastow is facing...look at the charges the heads of Adelphia are facing.
I don't know enough about the evidence to say one way or the other, but if there is enough against Fastow, Skilling, and co., then I daresay there is good cause to believe Kenny boy can be tried too, unless he was absolutely asleep at the switch, which makes him civilly liable from now until eternity.
The way it works in most companies is that the head boss (in this case Ken Lay) hires a couple of guys (ie Fastow and Skilling) to review documents that he may not have time to read (after all he's in meetings and whatnot trying to run the company). For instance when I was working for a large corporation, contracts would come in from our customers. If that document had my initials on it and my boss' initials on it the head boss signed it with little fanfare. See? It is possible for him to have been misled by a couple of rougues acting in concert.
Sure, and it's also possible that OJ was framed, though not likely. Reasonable doubt all the way, though. Refman, I know the way things work in large corporations and in large business transactions too, I have a decent amount of experience in that area. But a high profile, seemingly hands on CEO/founder like Lay being so in the dark as to be blindly signing documents while SKilling and Fastow ran multibillion dollar fake-accounting scams on the side? And Lay just happened to cash out right before it collapsed? Come on.... he is either the world's most negligent, willfully blind even, (didn't he take the Fifth before congress btw? I don't recall) executive(and in breach of fiduciary duty to all enron shareholders) who luckily happened to cash out right before the house of cards collapsed, or he knew about it. I'm all for the fact that he is innocent until proven guilty, but you're bending over backwards for Lay here; I don't think he deserves it.
ME, yea ME will do. seriously though, IMO, a high profile business school Dean with background in Finance or Accounting and experience in the industry, will make a good candidate.
It is possible. He hired a team of guys he believed in and went with their advice. Not really too farfetched. I'm not saying I necessarily believe Lay...just that reasonable doubt exists...enough to make a prosecution a waste of resources. Of course he did. Any lawyer worth his weight in crap would counsel him to take the 5th. He didn't sell all of his stock. He sold a good bit...but CEOs buy and sell large chunks of their own company as a matter of course. I'm not saying that I think he's squeaky clean...but reasonable doubt can be formed on these facts.
SO if reasonable doubt exists there is no reason to prosecute? I don't think the DOJ (or even the lowliest ADA) uses that as an excuse when assessing whether or not to seek an indictment . Why couldn't you say the same thing about Fastow, Skilling et al? Why prosecute OJ then? Reasonable doubt existed there. I don't have a non-cynical reason to explain why Fastow and Skilling are being indicted and Lay isn't. Neither do you.
Based on past experience, etc they estimate the probability of conviction. If the probability is low...then they decide whether the prosecution would be worth the governmental resources that would be required.
