[ql06] Re: CRIMINAL:S.E.C. Pursues Time Warner Investigation
- From: Steve Kennedy <2srk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 09:21:06 -0400
Sheldon Erentzen wrote:
>Last week, Professor Harry Glasbeek, retired Osgoode law Professor gave
>a talk on the wave of corporate crime, which is slowly starting to form
>a considerable part of our headline news. One of his main point was the
>fraudelent accounting policies of major corporations. I want to
>highlight the word policy because it was Glasbeeks argument that these
>fraudelent practices were deliberate and calculated decisions to break
>the law based on bean-counter determinations of profit/loss. One of
>Glasbeek's main points was the very real effect fraudelent accounting
>practices, called euphemistically "creative acounting", had on the
>economy was the need to make layoffs in economic sectors where the
>exagerrated profit margins lead to discrepancies between productive
>capital earnings and financial capital earnings--not to mention the lost
>revenue to governments. This point is important in a Canadian sense
>because when you hear people speak about the bankrupt medicare system
>(or any tax based social net policy), the question of how much available
>money is being lost through fraudelent corporate practices becomes
>extremely relevant. I wonder why this connection is never made by our
>major media outlets.
>
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>
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Uh, maybe the corporate media doesn't want investors looking too closely
at their own accounting practices. BellGlobe Media, Quebecor and CanWest
Global, to name just the Canadian companies, have got to be hiding the
losses from all those failed "convergence" boondoggles somewhere. What
really should be covered more closely, as well, is how the CEOs of
those companies got, and continue to get, HUGE AND OBSCENE paycheques
and stock options for failed business strategies. Whatever happened to
the old saying, "Closest to the top is closest to the door?" Until
institutional shareholders insist that boards fire the incompetent
crooks, withhold their HUGE AND OBSCENE severance packages and go after
them in civil court nothing will change. The D.A.s in the States and the
Crown in Canada just cannot mount the kind of legal firepower needed to
put defalcating CEOs and executives in jail, especially when those execs
are allowed to saddle shareholders with the costs of their legal defenses.
Just my $0.02. Good article Sheldon!
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