More business as usual

[vox]

Published on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 in the Times of London
Corporate America hit by Biggest Scandal in History
by Chris Ayres in New York

CORPORATE America suffered its biggest scandal to date last night when it was claimed that WorldCom, a telecommunications company founded by a devout Mississippi Christian, had lied about making about $3.85 billion (£2.6 billion) of profits over 15 months.

The size of the alleged profits overstatement at WorldCom is more than double the previous record, set by the pharmacy chain Rite Aid, and makes the accounting irregularities at Enron Corporation look like a rounding error. WorldCom, already crippled by nearly $30 billion of debt, is now expected to go bust.

Full Article (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0626-01.htm)

Another example of the normal functioning of capitalism.

Plus, of course, there's always the direct stealing by corporations from their employees (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0625-04.htm), too.

Yep. Capitalism sure is a dream...if you're a criminal.

vox

[Supermodel]

I think this really is the start of something big.

We are seeing the beginning of a dramatic shift where the average US citizen is losing faith in the big corporations, the foundation of US strength in the past 200 years.

Everyone has always known, for over 100 years, that the insiders and robber barons were in charge, but now we have entered a new era.

By making many US citizens shareholders (thru retirement plans and stock as comp) and by promising retirement by age 50 and a house at the beach, the dream of owning a new car and sending your kids to (name the univ) became everyone's dream.

Greed in the form of expected returns on investments, plus absolute security of those investments, settled over the nation.

Thus the fairy tale ends: negative returns, retirees going back to work, aunt Bea driving a used Ford, foreclosing on the mortgage.

These greedy bastards have put us on the edge of a potential depression since stock proces in the US bear no relevance whatsoever to ACTUAL (not fantasy) returns.

Who's to blame?

Wall Street brokers used to $10 million paychecks.

CEO's making $61 million a year for playing golf with the president.

The Media for loving all of it: Vogue: the middle market is a $1,000 suit in a bizarre color. Papers that recommend the "hot toy" for Christmas (people bidding $1,000 on the internet for it)

Meanwhile, our kids are raised by Guatemalan ladies who left their own children behind in poverty and filth.

Rant over. I'll be back later, as always, with all the answers.