Boom and Bust .:. grubbykid.com

Boom and Bust

The Wall Street Journal discusses Boom and Bust cycles and the connection between times of plenty and "accounting controversies":

Accounting scandals and bankruptcies, in fact, are one important reason that it can take the stock market years to recover fully from a bubble.

"This is not an isolated event," says Ray Dalio, president of Bridgewater Associates, a money-management firm that oversees investments worth $35 billion. "This is something that will spread" as many companies' accounting practices are examined. "Many more stories will come out. The examination will inevitably turn
up more cases of aggressive accounting and there will be a penalty for that aggressive accounting."

The title="Washington Post :: The Conservative Bubble Boys">Washington Post has another view of the cycle:

The bubble did it. Or so goes the newly fashionable, no-fault explanation for the cascading corporation scandals now posing a clear and present danger to the U.S. economy. "The '90s were a period of excess," intones head White House economist Lawrence Lindsay.

What I don't get, is why title="msnbc :: Going After Greed">BushCo. are so surprised at all of this. The fact that the Republican Party are now pushing for regulation of the industry is not an indication of the GOP suddenly becoming socially responsible, but another way to institute lax regulation and enjoy the positive press. Much like Clinton did to the GOP, BushCo are doing to the hapless Democrats, who are amounting as much resistance as Custer did years ago.

Public interest group Judicial Watch filed a title="">civil suit today against Halliburton Energy, their auditing firm (20 questions) and their former CEO, Vice President Dick Cheney, alleging that they overstated revenues, thus defrauding their stockholders. With BushCo. commenting on the trial of Halliburton trial [and that trial ending as a "Not Guilty"], and Cheney appeared in an Arthur Anderson video, saying:

The video, which fell into the hands of the Wall Street Journal, was made in 1996 when Mr Cheney was at Halliburton and showed his personal relationship with Andersen.

In it, he describes how Andersen gave advice "over and above" what would normally be expected from auditors.

In a short section of the video, Mr Cheney says: "I get good advice, if you will, from their people, based upon how we are doing business and how we are operating, over and above the normal, by-the-books auditing arrangement."

I don't know what Cheney and BushCo. had to do with Arthur Anderson or Halliburton, but there is more than enough probable cause to start an investigation over these charges. If this was Clinton, he would have been impeached already, which shows you how much the Republicans have used Spetember 11, the economy and general apathy to quiet the Democrats and any dissension. I was watching CNN and MSNBC today, and as the different hosts queried a member of Judicial Watch, the one common question was:

"Is this prudent during this time of War and soft economy?"

How insulting. Why not say that the 1st Amendment is valid until you start to speak out against the majority rule. This is absolutely the right time to question authority. These are the people who let Enron, Arthur Anderson, Tyco, KMart, WorldCom break the law and layoff millions of employees, all the while thier upper-management get nice "parachute" policies and sell off their stock and rake in millions. Think I am crazy, just ask href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/pledgeofallegiance.ap/" title="cnn.com :: Pledge of Allegiance ruled unconstitutional
">Michael A. Newdow - the man who brought the suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, who has received numerous death threats after the decision.

Boom and Bust

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