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WorldCom to File for Chapter 11 Protection
Mantour writes: "To everyone's big suprise ;), Worldcom is going for Chapter 11. 'The Chapter 11 filing by WorldCom would follow once high-flying companies like energy trader Enron Corp. and Global Crossing Ltd., which crumbled into bankruptcy amid a crush of accounting investigations by federal regulators.' You can get more info in this Yahoo story" Update: 07/22 12:21 GMT by T : mnordstr points out a CNN report calling this "the largest bankruptcy ever."
Saw the writing on the wall ...
I wonder who is next ?
DONT TREAD ON ME MOÎΩN ÎABÃ
They are not going away because of this. The US will not allow that due to security issues with the UUNET backbone. Now they will be forced to have more open book keeping and in a few years should be a very high priced item again.
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
Worldcom is going for Chapter 11..
It's been "going" there for a long time now. Big deal.
Another one bites the dust..
Why can't we all just get along?
-- WebWiz http://webwiz.ath.cx
Sidgemore has already said he wants WorldCom to resemble his old baby UUNET more in the future, so anything not related to data transmission is likely on the block.
Two relevent Salon comics...
Full Disclosure! (needs flash)
Crime Story
The upcoming election is going to be super-interesting. The Democrats pretty much bent over backwards to appease the Bush Administration. How will they reverse this and save face with the American left?
And yet, other than taking on the appearance of a strong leader after Sept. 11th (which a bran muffin could have accomplished, imo), what has Bush actually DONE for the US? He's basically a nothing president, who might just get re-elected because of this current environment of pro-Republican conformity.
What type of effect will this have on UUNet and Internet service in the United States in general?
I am a Worldcom employee, and here's my question, that I cannot seem to find an answer to anywhere. What does this mean to employees? I find lots about investors, bankers, and bond-holders, but very little about employees.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Not all companies that file for bankrupcy go broke. Otherwise no-one would file for it.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
WorldCom has close to $30B of debt. The interest payments alone are huge. They're not the only one either. Most telecom companies are drowning in debt.
Jesus used to be my co-pilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him.
It's time to upport your local telesales representatives! They're underworked and overpaid! Make them think for their bread and butter!
This sig no verb.
Shouldn't this have been filed into the "from the 'coming as no surprise to anyone' department"?
You're only as smart as your brain.
So, Bush wanted to American people to think he was doing something about the rashes of corporate corruption. So what does he do? He creates a task force, and doubles the (very small) penalties for this sort of thing.
You know what he should have done... If he had said that this sort of activity will fall under the mob laws, this would stop, and we'd know the president was not corrupt. If that happened, that would mean anyone involved in illegial activity would have full liability. You wouldn't just get 10 years in jail, then get out with all your ill-gotten money in-hand. The feds would be able to take away all your assets to pay off debts. Houses, cars, bank accounts, all taken away.
But then half of congress would end up in jail, and probably Bush himself.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The article mentions some pension funds that bought bonds, but no idea of how the debts are proportioned. Anyone know?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
WorldCom can still "go away". The government doesn't care who owns the network as long as it is operational. Don't confuse the two.
1)The division will be bought outright by another company.
2)The capital equipment will be sold off and the employees fired.
Why should we pay tax dollars to keep a monopoly up and running? I hope the government doesnt step in, the government should never step in to save any company unless its an absolutely vital company such as a food company, or water or electric company where peoples lives are on the line.
Worldcom is a communications company and I hate this corperate welfare shit, we cant get welfare, so why should they?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I know someone who still owns some Enron stock, and she was advised to frame the actual certificates and sell them as collectors items.
Just wondering what sort of recourse the average individual investor has in these situations...
so what happens to the internet now? and how big will the media hype over it all be?
SecondPageMedia - Wha
The truth lies deeper. :-)
:-)
They've added suprise to the auto correction list by mistake, and are too embarrassed to ask how to get rid of it
Don't we all fear the 'RTFM!' ?
What do you mean I took the flamebait? I just like it spicy...
No sig to see here. Move along.
.. I hope this doesn't effect my hosting provider, Digex, which is owned by Worldcom.
Can I get some cheap overseas labor to move 30+ servers to another hosting provider?
[Fucking wait 2 minutes to post another comment. You hit back arrow and your content is expired so you have to retype everything again.. argh. Stop penalizing people that can think and type at the same time! Actually, why don't you let people with Good/Excellent Karma able to post every 45 seconds rather than 2 minutes?]
Live web cams
Decades ago, didn't we learn in economics class, or was it civics class, etc. that Nations often turn to war to take the attention off of other problems, and to rally the country around the war effort. Did anyone see anything in the news lately about Iraq?
Of course you did. Now, armed with that information,
predict what will happen next...
I've been wondering about this a lot lately. I've worked at a number of places, been a fully paid regular type employee at IBM for about 5 years, a medium sized company for 2 years and a startup for about a year now. I've seen how things work at those companies and a number of their partners. I've seen a number of sleezy people in business but I've also seen my fair share of honest people and I can't imagine that there weren't whistle blowers.
All things being equal, and they are usually pretty fair. You have AAnderson cooking books at a number of places. Most of those places get audits by KPNG, Price Waterhouse, and others. Likewise you have AAnderson doing the audits at places those other firms account for. How can other accounting firms compete with a company that cooks the books with out also doing so? They audit their work and they should know because they have clients of their own and should have a good feeling for the state of the economy. I've been really amped on the stock market a long time, I've made some buck in it, lost some, for the most part done really well but I don't know how you can trust anybody now.
I can't believe that it's sleezy business becuase if it was just sleezy business then someone more sleezy would rat them out for blackmail or political reasons. Or someone honest would say something. I can't believe that top notch accounting firms would lie for each other and I don't see how they can compete against one firm that is turning losing companies in to profitable ones. Then I see W's response (twice the stay at the federal country club) plus all the politicians are benefitting from it in the first place.
The only thing that makes any sense to me is that lot's of companies are doing crooked accounting, everybody knows it and that's why there aren't any whistle blowers and that a couple more slow quarters than they are expecting is all it could take to wipe out a 100 year old company because they hide the losses and run out of hiding places.
I'm rambling a little but I look on the smaller scale and there have been a handful of the new small linux companies that have burned out in fireball and then people showed up at work with padlocks on the doors, and people were shocked.. The things that happend at Loki are the same types of things happening at WorldCom or Qwest, just on a smaller scale. The telcos are also pretty much a fail proof business if you're not expecting endless radical growth, you will have endless customers and cash flow, it's not a really risky business to run a long distance high speed network, people need that service. Has business come to this?
No. Once you file, you are basically saying that you are an unreliable debtor. That means your corporate bonds are worthless. That means you cannot fund further growth. That means the capital equipment that allows you to operate at all may have have to be auctioned.
Also remember that WorldCom operates in a market that is in terrible shape with crappy prospects even should they somehow survive. I suspect this bankruptcy will act as a huge wave of consolidation in a dead market.
So when do we get to see former Worldcom employees bare all in Playboy?
"I'm glad. It coundn't happen to a bigger bunch of assholes. MCI treated me like shit until I told them to pound sand and went with Sprint." Speaking of Sprint....I wonder how glad THEY are taht their merger with Worldcom broke apart last year?
The bigger they are, the harder they break the law. :)
While there will be a lot of folk pointing out that WorldCom had massive debts, that is not the primary reason for the chapter 11 filing. The banks would have been happy to go on lending if they could trust the books. The company was actually operating profitably - if the 3.8 billion was the limit of the fraud.
So why does a profitable company cook the books? The timing of the fraud makes it look like it was done to save Bernie Ebbers from going bankrupt personaly. He had taken out a massive loan from the company and used it to buy stock. When the market went south Bernie was left owing a third of a billion he could not repay.
The thing I find personally illuminating about all this business is that it turns out that a lot of high powered accountancy turns out to be incomprehensible for the same reason new age psychobabble is incomprehensible - it is complete bullshit.
The problem we now have is that nobody can trust any accounts, even those not audited by Arthur Andersen. While the accounting tricks were clearly being used to mislead in the Enron/Harken cases there are cases where a company might legitimately use a captive company. Equally it is not necessarily fraud when two companies buy from each other (a related party transaction) but how do you tell the difference between a genuine transaction and a fake one?
The problem that the US now faces is that foreign capital is rushing to get out as fast as it can. That may well cause interest rates to rise as the government is forced to fund the budget deficit with loans at higher and higher rates.
Whichever way you look at it this is the end of the line for corporate deregulation. Regulation is now going to be considered pensioner friendly and stockholder friendly. At the very least we will see the sweatheart deals arranged by Enron and the Gramms to exclude energy derivatives from oversight being swept away. But at the deeper level I think that politicians are not going to be able to score easy votes by dennouncing regulation.
It is very curious the way that the second Bush administration is shaping up so much like the first. Stratospheric popularity after an initially successful war in the middle east, then being mired in financial scandal (savings and loans) and a recession while the budget deficit ballooned.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Its telling that stocks actually drop in real time when he starts talking about corruption.
Since Worldcom is filing for Chapter 11, does this mean that MCI won't be a long distance provider anymore? I really enjoy their long distance service.
They are doing a debt for equity swap. In english, they are issuing more shares of stock in exchange for the retirement of some debt. This will result in less interest payments, ability to pay off the rest of the debt and have free cash flow to keep the company going. People should read the article. The reason for chapter 11 is for the debt to equity swap to take place, the company has to be legally under bankruptcy protection.
Anderson employees...
CNN.com - Playboy focuses on WorldCom, Andersen
The first priority was to stabilize the company financially," he said. "We don't think that there will be any significant impact on the employees and vendors, for that matter, and we should have plenty of cash to make it."
Sigmore said the company would look into selling some of its peripheral businesses, but not key franchises like MCI or UUNet. MCI is the company's core long-distance business; UUNET is a major Internet player.
Consumer trust? When the heck has that ever had anything to do with anything? If you notice all the headlines screaming "stock" this and "accounting" that, the people that really carry import here are the investors. Most large corporations care for their consumers exactly as much as their investors care for their consumers (and guess what happens if it's more profitable to screw consumers over), because the investors are where the real money comes from. Why do you think they fudged their accounting books to begin with?
WORLDCOM: Youu arree the weakest link!
Whoever wrote that must have had a strange statement on their face at the time!
Well, sort of, anyway. ANyone remember when Inacom tanked? I was working for them at the time.
Luckily, I got picked up by a "competitor" who was also onsite at the same place, so I only had a week of questionability.
THe schematic is slightly different.. Inacom claimed they *might* fold.. they claimed they *MIGHT* declare bankruptcy, and they put themselves on the block to be purchased, in whole or in part. Other groups came in, looked decided "I want part of this, but they are going to crash anyway, so I will just wait and absorb their assets after the crash, rather than paying an inflated (read: more than bottom penny) price for them.
However, what Inacom DID do, was broadcast a message on Wednesday, saying everything was cheery, bankruptcy could be avoided, etc. On Friday we got a voicemail saying "the vast majority of Inacom employees have been let go. Pinkertons (I think.. one of hte security companies) employees will escort you from the site."
We sued, in a class action, for lost wages, and violation of the WARN act.. (if a company knows its tanking, and doesnt tell you, they are liable.) This suit is still in progress, as far as I know. And may be for several years.. seeing ANY money, including 401K money can be tough as well. Once the IRS gets ahold of it, they can hold it pretty much as long as they want. Especially if there was financial malfeasance within the company.. you may also find out your company did not pay as much into the 401, health, insurance, unemployment, as they claimed they had. ANd there is nothing you can do, really, once the corporation folds/loses all its assets. The individuals who ran it are blameless, and it is very very difficult to sue them personally. (Hence, corporations of one.. for that very reason).
Good luck.. hope it all works out for you.. but it is often ugly in the long run.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
While what you say is all well and good, how do you justify putting corporate corruption in the same classification as the mob? You can't just arbitrarily assign something to a class of crime because you think the punishment is appropriate, after all. Unless you can give some real justification, it just won't fly.
Come on, Samir.. they even have conjugal visits there. It'll be great!
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
This site needs a "-2: uninformed moron" rating.
Ugh, this place is swarming with idiots.
I think this is a silver lining at least. Worldcom owns UUnet; UUnet provides (i'm fairly certain) the majority of the modem pools used by AOL; If UUnet suffers a "disruption of service", then AOL DIES! .
Unfortunately, they also own the remnants of the old Compuserve business network, which is the backbone for UPS and Visa....
Which also means that portion, at least, will most likely be federally protected.
Which is a good thing. I've seen several people post that they have backup circuits; I wonder how many of those backup circuits are just Worldcom by another name?
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Thats all there is to say.
Great Linux Site
Obviously we would all prefer that these things never happened, but it's actually GOOD that they happen once in a while. The reason? It's proof that the system works.
What would be worse than the current system is to have corruption take root and never get cured, generation after generation. I'm sure everyone can find innumerable examples of this in the world.
This probably isn't the end of it; I'm sure more scandals will come to light before it's through. But given the fact that corruption WILL take root whenever you have people, it's good to know that these things are self correcting eventually.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I've seen a number of sleezy people in business but I've also seen my fair share of honest people and I can't imagine that there weren't whistle blowers
Seriously, my worry is always that it'll effect me finding a new job, because you'll get marginalized and pushed out of your present one, and then other prospective employers will look at you as a guy on the outside. So even when the places I've worked for have done some questionable things, I just put my blinders on and try not to think about it. I and every other schlep on the middle to bottom tiers already have enough job insecurity without ratting on the old boys.
I've heard some rumors recently of various groups getting their warchests assembled. Apparently there's some tasty capacity to be had once all that ugly debt gets stripped away. Just when you thought it was safe and the consolidation cycle was over [queue music].
is the requirement for growth. It's easy for a manager to panic over a zero-growth quarter because cash-flow isn't as important as growth. Even small business people are stampeded into making bad decisions because their business isn't growing. Never mind that they have cash-flow, it's the growth they think they need.
In large corporations a new manager will be under the gun to produce more than the last manager. When there is no more growth to be had, then they are forced to invent it. Hence the accounting scandals.
We will see further examples of this problem as companies look to foreign markets for sales growth and to foreign production to reduce expenses. And, when those fail, to accounting tricks to make it look like they've succeeded.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
So after Bush gets into the Whitehouse by promising to run the country like a business we suddenly discover how many of the businesses are being run. So how is this a negative, the corporations didn't start cooking the books on election day.
No one seems to be asking this:
"Why are all of these companies having to resort to convoluted accounting practices in the first place?"
Surely if the accounting requirements and taxation regimes were less swinging, companies would not need to aggressively hide their activities, and would be therefore less likely to catastrophically implode at the slightest prod.
Its about time that governments back off of the individual and businesses, streamline and reduce the amount that they interfere in the way people organize thier finances.
There is a need for a measure of control of company behaviour, but clearly if services like the internet itelf are going to come down because of this, something is very very wrong.
This failure and the others are not the fault of accountants or executives. They are the result of artificial and unreasonable government pressure on companies that force them to take measures to ensure that they survive and make a profit in an increasingly over regulated and hostile business environment.
The Chapter 11 filing by WorldCom would follow once high-flying companies like energy trader Enron Corp. and Global Crossing Ltd. ...
Imagine a...wait...
There is a Beowulf cluster of these!
Maybe the greedheads have finally fouled their own nests? Money goes where it goes, and the American greedheads have just assumed that it must always flow through the NYSE. Turns out nobody can trust American accounting practices. Buy into an American business? Risky, their books might just be a tissue of lies. Money won't like this.
Images of butterflies and hurricanes...
How to take care of America's current financial woes; (not just applicable to WorldCom)
:-D
Everybody earning more then $100,000 a year takes a 10% pay cut.
Everybody earning more then $1,000,000 a year takes a 20% pay cut.
Would help if somebody also gave the congress critters the occasional wack along-side the head. Well even if it didn't help it would feel good.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
LOL.. this is almost funny. I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault. Not Congress. Not the SEnate. Not the last eight YEARS of ignoring signs and worrying about guys selling sawed off shotguns in the mountains rather than corporate scandal and greed.
There is a cycle here you'se guys arent noticing. (Or arent mentioning, anyway). After *EVERY* huge economic gain in this, our american society, companies tank like this. Its called "spending money you dont have". Hate to be a bible quoter.. but "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
The issue isnt as much with the government allowing the companies to regulate themselves.. it is with the BANKS looking to turn huge profits on overnight and offshore loans. See, thats where the banks make money. ANd if they would pass anything more than even a cursory glance at a company's books, they might catch the cookage instead of loaning 3B to a company to aquire another company, and find out six months later its all cotton candy.
The president has a certain amount of expectation to speak on this, but he has no REAL control. He cannot magically wave his pen and make longer prison sentences. That requires an act of the full government. ANd as stated, they wont do it. How many of them do you think have taken payoffs from various companies? Or money for their camppaigns? Or thrown huge bones to these companies in pork barrel politics? If anyone, your senators and congressmen should be the ones you are screaming bloody murder to. Not the PResident.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
The problem also lies with the investors - the little and big ones (the big ones the most, pension funds and other institutional investors own about 45% of public companies) - started seeing the stock market as a big time casino game and rewarding quick profits rather than the fundamental value of the company and its business model.
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I'd like to offer two observations.
First, whenever some story having to do with an IT company, its business practices, and ethics appears on Slashdot its almost a given there will be at least one post that can be summerized as "they're a business - they've got to make money!" It seems the entire point is that ethics has no place when profit is anywhere near the conversation. Now - I would shrug it off as a troll if it weren't for the fact that its consistant and I've met the same attitude when dealing with marketing business units (obviously outside of Slashdot).
Secondly, I used to work for a somewhat small telecom company. Actually - I worked for the ISP that had been bought out by the telecom company. It was a strange experience. As upper management slowly killed all the ISP side's business, we began to wonder where the hell they were making their money. There was an off-shore betting operation that used our satalite links - could be mob or drug money. There was the calling cards targeted at South American immigrants - but even when they played fast and loose with exactly how much actual phone call you got for your money, we weren't quite sure what the profit level was (but I was darned glad nobody knew where our operations center was - in the early days of the cards, the ISP side would field overflow call volume and I couldn't believe the number of pissed off people... one of which read off a p.o. box location and said he was heading there with a gun). So if these few successes weren't the major income, where the hell was the money coming from? It wasn't from the ISP's dwindling customer base. Then it was all clear.
Management announced another dog-and-pony show. We were to get everything prepared for a new gaggle of investors who would tour the facility. One of the business types gushed about how one of our illustrious execs had come from somewhere high in the old WorldCom foodchain and has been attracting investors who wanted to get in on the next WorldCom-like rising star. That would apparently be us. Our income - investors.
It seems our entire business plan was to attract investment dollars. Then puff up to look like a much bigger fish than we were. Hopefully, a much larger fish would see us, decide we were all fat and tasty-looking, and swallow us whole. Everyone would make huge profits. Step Three was almost a certainty.
I was amazed every day that I showed up for work and the front door wasn't closed with a chain and padlock.
I wonder if you even know who at Worldcom is to blame, and exactly what that person did wrong. How about thinking a little more and pointing fingers a little less?
My suggestion:
Someone from Worldcom (and probably someone from Arthur Andersen) should stand trial under the current securities fraud laws, and if found guilty, be sentenced.
Not very appealing, is it? When it comes to vengenance, envy, hate, and petty political gain, I guess The Law just isn't up to the task.
...what kind of 'backbone' these so-called executives really have....
Under US bankruptcy law, your wages for the past 90 days are higher priority than some other claims such as bond-holders, up to $4300.
m
Do a little googling on "bankruptcy priority employee claims" and variations of that. Here's an informative page:
http://www.bankruptcy-expert.com/creditorfaq.ht
See also:
http://www.bankruptcy-expert.com/priorities.htm
As far as future employment goes, Worldcom intends to keep operating (Chapter 13 is continuing operations, Chapter 7 is fold-up-the-tent-right-now). So at least some Worldcom employees will have jobs tomorrow.
The last paragraph parent post makes what I interpret to be an indirect shot at the current president's economic policies. While this may or may not be the intent of the post, the mindset that I have mentioned is common enough in media reports and ordinary conversation that I feel the need to rant about how I believe President Bush is getting the shaft for a problem he is not primarily responsible for creating.
I can't stand how many people claim that the political blame behind the Enron, WorldCom, and other fradulent companies' downfalls is solely that of President George W. Bush. I find that charge to be along the lines of claiming that Bush's foreign policy failures were the chief reason for last September's terrorist attacks.
As with the terror attacks, there were many causes for the ongoing meltdown of the United States capital market. The factors leading to the sudden bankruptcies of these large companies existed long before the current president moved into the White House, and some existed even before his father lived there. Most important among the causes: the executives themselves that lied about the state of their companies. In at least the Adelphia and WorldCom scenarios, it is pretty clear that blatantly criminal acts took place: they falsely claimed profitability to obtained credit from banks that would not have loaned them money if the banks knew that these companies were in fact losing money hand over fist. These executives should be jailed for AT LEAST 10 years (if they knew that these acts were ruining the company for their own personal benefit, then I would like to see them jailed for life) in addition to making as complete a restitution as possible for bondholders and stockholders.
In addition, the incentives behind this lying about companies' financial statemets has been around since the 1980's, when the "Greed is Good" mantra began to sweep Wall Street. Both in the 1980's (until October 1987) and in the 1990's the booming stock market encouraged companies to do whatever was necessary to boost their stock price. Also, especially in the 90s, the ridiculous growth of executive pay, primarily in the form of stock and stock options, gave executives a personal incentive to boost their share prices as soon as possible. Boards of directors, who also largely paid themselves in stock, turned their backs on their obstensible duties to protect shareholders' long-term interests to bolster their own short-term interests.
There were many economists who railed against these conflicts of interest and urged the SEC and Congress to pass new regulations regarding the nature of executive pay and how publicly traded companies were to be governed. But, with the economy appearing to continue to grow robustly, the federal government saw no need to rock the boat. Hell, stock prices grew substantially for 16 of the 18 years between 1982 and 1999 (IIRC, 87 and 90 were the only two down years for the Dow Jones average in that time), so The Market couldn't be wrong, right?
Presidents Reagan and Clinton essentially got a free pass for the way they allegedly handled the economy. All they really did was continue the charade of passing off a modestly growing economy as a tremendously growing economy and let their successors worry about it when it comes to reconcile Wall Street's figures with Main Street's. In addition to coming in at the end of a business cycle, both Bushes suffered tremendous external shocks that hurt the U.S. economy: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 that caused oil prices to double plagued the first Bush's economy; the hijackings gave the current economy a significant body blow. Neither President can be accurately blamed for these problems.
Am I claiming that the current president or his father is infallible? Absolutely not. But using him as a scapegoat for problems that have infected the entire public and private sectors does a disservice to the president and leads to the political squabbling that will slow down the necessary reforms to the economy. The older Bush was in office for four years; Reagan and Clinton lived in the White House for eight years. GWB has barely been in office for 18 months. Which presidents do you think have had the biggest opportunity to influence economic policy since 1981? And another thing to keep in mind: before he can act, the president often needs the consent of another government body -- Congress.
Before pointing the finger at anyone or anything for a problem like today's business fiascos, one must realize that it's not that simple. If there were one cause, then it would have already been dealt with and confidence would already be on its way back into our stock markets. Our entire financial system needs to be tweaked; if one person or group ends up taking the blame for an entire economy's faults, it will end up being an injustice to everyone in the United States.
After graduating college I went to work at MCI, which was soon bought out by WorldCom. WorldCom is now in Chapter 11.
:)
After leaving WorldCom I went to work for McLeodUSA, which soon declared Chapter 11.
After leaving McLeodUSA I went to work for Yomu, which declared Chapter 7.
After leaving Yomu, I went to work for PGP Security, which doesn't even exist anymore.
Score: four for four.
Y'know, most people would be proud of batting 1.000. So why do I feel vaguely embarassed, foolish and ashamed?
And if so, are you feeling the employment crunch like I am? I havn't had a job in quite a long time, and now that both williams and worldcomm are basically folding, tulsa will basically go under. Its depressing here. You can tell its a very bad economy just for the fact that nessisity items are going up and luxury items are going WAY down in price.
My question to a friend in the financial sector was if stock analysts have enough information to spot troubled companies like Worldcom. He said that the analyst he sits next to has been yelling since last november to get out of Worldcom stock. The biggest red flag apparently was the huge loans to the CEO. When you are looking to buy stock wouldn't it be nice to see a ranking of how many warning signs exist in the company?
Last week I bought 100 shares of WorldCom at 7.9 cents per share. I consider it a lotto ticket. Either the shares are worthless and I lose my huge $7.90 investment, or the company recovers and I make a bundle. It's probably a loss, so I'll skip going to In-N-Out one day. Big whoop.
So after Bush gets into the Whitehouse by promising to run the country like a business we suddenly discover how many of the businesses are being run.
I thought bush got into the whitehouse by counting votes the way many of the businesses are being run?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
uncultured
In other words, we supply the culture to the world, and Europe is jealous that their culture no longer matters.
undereducated
In other words, all the bright people in Europe come to the US to be educated, and Europe is jealous that they haven't been the world's think tank for the last century.
arrogant
In other words, the US's opinion matters a helluva lot more than Europe's who are jealous that their politicians consist either of homicidal maniacs or cowards. It also doesn't help that they have no core concept of freedom, and have embraced one of the most oppressive systems in history (aka Socialism).
I think that just about sums up why Europe hates the US. We're just better than you.
You asked 'how is this a negative' when really what you are trying to ask is 'how is this his fault'.
The worldcom affair is not Bush's fault, however it is a negative because:
1. Make Bush CEO of USA Inc was his principal campaign theme
2. Bush is implicated in corrupt share deallings the full details of the SEC enquiry have yet to be released, but it is already apparent that Bush had signed a lockup agreement promising not to sell the shares at the time he sold. If Bush knew that the share sale that had caused the lockup had had to be cancelled because of the state of the company he was trading on insider information.
3. Chenney and White The VP and the secretary of state for the army are implicated in major corruption scandals.
4. Bush's hypocrisy a day after failling to accept responsibility for his own actions the president takes it upon himself to call on CEOs to do just that.
5. Fuzzy math was used to justify the Tax cut. The books at Enron and Worldcom were not cooked to half the extent that Bush and Co cooked the budget to get the Tax Cut for his rich friends through.
6. The corrupt corporations were run by Republicans with strong links to senior republicans Kenneth Lay was famously a friend of GWB and lent his corporate jet for his campaign. Worldcom was run by Bernie Ebbers who was one of Trent Lott's principal campaign contributors.
So yes, while Worldcom is not the fault of the President it makes people a lot more aware of his shortcommings and is therefore quite justifiably a negative for him.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Is everybody doing it?
That is exactly the right question.
My answer is: I don't think so. I think the corruption was systemic, but not endemic. That is, I think a lot of companies pushed the accounting gimmicks pretty hard, and for every one that has blown up already, there are several more that have gotten away with it so far.
But it's harder to pull that shit in a company that is not growing or undergoing some other kind of financial shuffling. And eventually, truth leaks out somehow, if only because a disgruntled ex-employee carries a stack of memos to a newspaper. (Imagine what a whistleblower in an IT department could do to a crooked company now).
Also, stock market reporting has had a big bias towards giving a lot of attention to technology in the past few years, and of course we're all geeks here so we look at that segment too. There aren't any of these scandals going on yet at places like Costco and General Motors. Tech is not the whole universe.
Note to self: Don't hire rjh.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
At least according to the sign at their telemarketer call center in Newport News, VA. The sign used to say something like, "Hiring bonus, $180." Now it just says "Apply now." So rest asured, /.'ers. You'll still get those annoying telemarker calls at dinner time.
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
It's about time WorldCon (current spelling intended) crashed and burned.
They're service is the worst I have dealt with.
They openly support spammers, saying they are 'legitimate business users'.
And they have no morals. Typical western-style corporation.
Crash & Burn, baby!
Please, go get a job at Microsoft.
They got caught at it when Bush was President.
So now you want to blame Bush for criminals that started their crimes during the Clinton administration, but were not indicted or prosecuted by the Clinton administration? And you want to blame Bush for the market bubble collapsing (returning to good valuations), but remain silent on the Clinton bubble expanding in the first place?
Not sure about Mozilla, but Netscape 6.2 on redhat is in -Edit- -Preferences- -Advanced- -Cache- and then select the radio to 'Compare the page is cache to the page on the network' Once per session. IE is similar, in -Internet Options- on -General- tab hit button for Temporary Internet Files -Settings- and select something other than Automatic, I think it's 'Every time you start Internet Explorer' Hope this helps --Josh
Just because I AM paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get me.
Well folks, the "Silicon Alley" big mouths are in the same status, but Flatiron Partners can throw away money so easily since they have JP Morgan as their shell. The two "brains" that started this company should never be trusted again with ANY money!
My career path looks eerily similar to yours. Where are you working now? I need to be sure I don't get hired there!
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
This is from Hamlet, spoken by an old fool.
My career path looks eerily similar to yours. Where are you working now? I need to be sure I don't get hired there!
Or buy their stock...
The stock market does not have anything to do with a company's fundamentals, and it's doubtfull it ever did. It's all about investor confidence. A wise investor will check the fundamentals and place money accordingly (cf Warren Buffet), but it's quite possible to make a lot of money from buying into junk companies as they get popular.
Gun control is much more important than 'corporate scandals' will ever be. The guy in the mountain and his family got what they deserved. They were evil criminal monsters for going against the much needed sensible and reasonable restrictions of gun control laws.
The second amendment is there to grant the government the right to own arms and to ban the people from having them. Gun ownership in this country is a priviledge, not a right, and it is going to be curtailed soon.
Seriously. How much commission did you pay on your $7.90 purchase?
It will be tough to make money if you're trading at a typical place like Ameritrade, Datek, or E*Trade that charges $10 to $20 for the purchase, and another $10 to $20 when you sell.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
-
(a) At any time after the commencement of the case but before
confirmation of a plan, on request of a party in interest or the
United States trustee, and after notice and a hearing, the court
shall order the appointment of a trustee -
(1) for cause, including fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, or
gross mismanagement of the affairs of the debtor by current
management, either before or after the commencement of the case,
or similar cause...
Fraud, check. Dishonesty, check. Incompetence, check. Gross mismanagement, check. There's certainly cause for the court to order the appointment of a trustee and kick out the current management.I think you just got modded-up because you told slashdotters what they wanted to hear: Money grubbing companies are to blame for everything.
Blaming congress rather than the president is borderline. The President is the Chief Executor and Chief Legislator. If he had exercised his powers to attempt to get such laws passed, and the senate did not go along with it, I would agree with you. However, it is also true that the Senate could do so on their own (but that takes much more time). You could have fooled me. That's exactly what it appears to be. A corporation is designed with the intent to do anything within the law to make money. That mindset is a dangerous one, which is why companies are subject to laws designed specifically to regulate corporations. The fact that individuals inside a company went just too far is not unusual.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
When this whole worldcom thing came after enron, I was thinking how we should problaby not have been so gung ho about disecting the books of every major company, since it seems some big players seem to be not quite the angels we thought they were (yeah right). I'm just wondering if the damage would have been less if these things had been spread out more. That's the sort of sneaky thing thing that got us in trouble in the first place, but still...
Where does it stand in relation to UUNET and CW? I thought that CW bought the switching/routing stuff and ISP customers (as of then), while WCOM retained the physical plant (layer 1). Anyone know?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Saying the banks could have just looked deeper and found the inconsistencies is like saying that if someone goes into a bank with a fake ID, and gets a loan under an assumed ID, the bank is at fault. The wole idea is that WorldCom broke the law by falsifying records... That means it would take a full fledged investigation to determine something was wrong. Come on, it's not unreasonable for a bank to assume a company is not breaking the law.
Why not? They assume I am breaking the law every time I cash a check with them. Some of them wont even honor checks drawn on their own accounts unless you have enough money in your OWN account with them to cover the cost of the check. Have you ever gone for a mortgage? I have had less invasive background checks done by the police. (but we wont go into that now.)
It lies on the bank to secure its billions of dollars of its depositors money. After all, theoretically, the bank answers to us, the peoples money who keep it afloat day to day.
Blaming congress rather than the president is borderline. The President is the Chief Executor and Chief Legislator. If he had exercised his powers to attempt to get such laws passed, and the senate did not go along with it, I would agree with you. However, it is also true that the Senate could do so on their own (but that takes much more time).
Hmm. You have a point. However, Bush has a very tough fight to get ANYTHING through congress at this point. There are enough Dem's on the hill who have sworn to oppose just about anything he tries that he has to be rather picky and choosy about what he tries to get done. And I think he has bigger fish to fry. (Or, thought he did, what with buildings blowing up, a war in the middle east, and another two wars brewing, one between Palestine and Israeal, and one between Pakistan and India). I think he's been pretty busy with other things, truth be told. But laying all the blame on him is kind of silly. Especially when these things *HAVE* been happening for the last umpteen years, and no-one else has had the desire to do anything about it either.
Again.. it boils down to how much money these CEO's and their respective companies have put in the pockets of the people who refuse to regualte them.. or the people who refuse to prosecute when they do get caught. Or who choose to hand forth extremely lenient sentences when they finally come before a judge or a review board.
After all, the laws already exist to enforce punishment on these things. Not everyone gets the Michael Milken Club Med prison treatment.
You could have fooled me. That's exactly what it appears to be. A corporation is designed with the intent to do anything within the law to make money. That mindset is a dangerous one, which is why companies are subject to laws designed specifically to regulate corporations. The fact that individuals inside a company went just too far is not unusual
You are right. It is not unusual. It should be however. The laws should be changed so that those responsible for running the companies into the ground at the expense of the stock holders and the workers should be personally liable. Their golden parachutes and multi-million dollar palaces and perks should be at risk, as well. Those smart enough to take their cash out before it gets ugly and sink it into material goods should lose those goods until they are in the position of those they have damaged on the way.
Of course, a lot of this would not happen if investors had a clue. The market of recent years has been one of rapid wealth and fast returns on big buys. That can only lead to artifially inflated stocks, and huge amounts of cash trading hands. Look at RedHat.. and see what ESR said about his "sudden millionaire status" when they IPO'd. He said he couldnt touch it for six months.. but a lot of other people made a lot of money on that stock in the first couple of days it was out. The system isnt broken.. but it sure aint perfect either.
maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
I guess its because they are mostly old and white... hee hee.
Anyone ever tried to save as much as possible on taxes by exploiting all possible loopholes? Why should corporations be any different? It's the rules & regulations & loopholes that suck.
Asking for profit companies to be "morally proper" is missing the point a bit. Most companies are in the business of maximizing profit not social welfare.
Isn't that what governments are supposed to regulate and enforce - social welfare?
These scandals are symptoms of an f__d up system not the root cause...
BTW Does anyone really think AAnderson was the only big accounting firm with those types of accounting practices?
The 'lockup agreement' is not the issue... Bush & friends were released from that when the plan to release additional shares was ended.
The real issue (regarding Bush's sale of stock) is whether he improperly acted on inside information when he sold the stock.
In my opinion, he sure tried to. In this case it's pretty clear that it didn't harm the investors, since the price of the stock did not fall after the earnings report was released. So any actual punishment for this was never a question.
However, the reason people bring this up is not because it has any direct bearing on WorldCom, Global Crossing, or Enron. It is a question of character. Some people will argue that a president's character should not be an issue. For my part, I have always considered it an issue. And Bush's actions in that instance do not speak well of his character.
Bush is implicated in corrupt share deallings the full details of the SEC enquiry have yet to be released, but it is already apparent that Bush had signed a lockup agreement promising not to sell the shares at the time he sold.
This matter has already been investigated several times, by both parties. It was even used, unsuccessfully, as a campaign issue against Bush. Career workers in the SEC, who just happen to also be Democrats, say there's nothing here. Face it, there's nothing here. Move on.
Fuzzy math was used to justify the Tax cut. The books at Enron and Worldcom were not cooked to half the extent that Bush and Co cooked the budget to get the Tax Cut for his rich friends through.
The tax cut hasn't taken effect yet. And if you're an American, you're getting a piece of that tax cut too. I guess that makes you a rich friend of Bush? Whoops.
The corrupt corporations were run by Republicans with strong links to senior republicans Kenneth Lay was famously a friend of GWB and lent his corporate jet for his campaign. Worldcom was run by Bernie Ebbers who was one of Trent Lott's principal campaign contributors.
You conveniently forgot Global Crossing, run by prominent Democrat, Gary Winnick. And whose White House did Ken Lay pay to spend the night in? I'll give you a hint, it was just before Bush took office.
Where do you work now, and are they publically traded so I can short their stock?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
They started trying that about the time that their own economic bubble burst in 1990, and they are still trying it.
It's not working very well. The problem is that investors, especially foreign investors, can't tell the difference between sick companies and healthy companies (in fact that's the centerpiece of the "stealth fixup" strategy). So investors quickly figure out that they can't trust the financial reports of ANY company, good or bad. A Gresham's Law effect kicks in and investors stay away from EVERY stock for a long time.
I think it's better to have a big bang. Get all the ugliness out, and then make it much harder for companies to forge their results in the first place. That enables honest companies to keep operating in the capital markets.
which (I feel) summed those kind of things up rather well: (my emphasis)
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
$1.5 billion. Profit. Per quarter.
Sounds like bad news for 8000+ Internet users in Iowa ;)
Is Internet Navigator publically traded?
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Gary Winnick, BTW, close friend of Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the DNC. Who made $100,000 go to $18 million with another questionable stock trade, of Global Crossing stock.
What were you saying about politicians and their business cronies again?
Ho Hum. Back to hypocrisy as usual for Democrats. And class warfare! An oldie but a goodie!
WorldCom now has an official bankruptcy site. So far, there's nothing there but happy talk press releases.
People who are laid off, still spend money, what? You think because you are laid off that rent doesnt have to be paid, food doesnt get purchased? Bullshit.
Sure its good to keep people employed but people who get laid off get new jobs, usually just as good. People working at WorldCom will simply move to Bell Atlantic and other companies.
You see the economy doesnt run because theres monopoly big huge corperations employeeing alot of people, people actually get paid alot more when theres no big corperations, when theres a bunch of small competiting corperations the market is at is best, the stock market is better, people get paid more, and people spend more.
Competition forces companies to spend more, companies which spend more allow the people who work for them to spend more.
Worldcom wont be spending alot of money, so wages are going to go down.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What effect will this have on the stock market? It should have no effect at all. This is already refelected in their current stock price and anyone who didn't expect this shouldn't be on Wall St. BUT! This will trigger more panic selling on Monday. There has got to be a stop to panic driven selling on all markets before the economic slide will stop. And that will take a confidence boost which you can't create with legislation or tough attitudes. Smart investors will stay in the stock market and buy up all the cheap stock that will be riding high in a few years. Please, lets all come to our senses and stop this craziness. I need to sell my house and it would really help if the percieved economy improved. *grin*
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
no this is not proof that the system works. If the system worked things would have never gotten this far.
Basicly the system depends on stuff being discovered at the accountant - auditing and certifying stage. The system also depends on analysts finding out when things have gone bad. Neither of those happened.
So no the system does not look to be currently working.
But we will see. The system also says that accountants that certify false transactions should be liable for the damgaes that result. We'll see how that turns out.
If the large accounting firms and their partners are held liable for the losses of investors at least the punishment stage of the system will be working.
The entire "You bad company you!" swill that we are being subjected to is pathetic.This sort of thing has been going on for YEARS all across America and WE ALL KNOW IT. Why in the hell...in the middle of a recession, do we decide to suddenly sprout a sense of morailty? There is more to this picture than meets the eye I think. Of all times to persecute business, lets do it after terrorist attacks and a freaked out public shall we? GWs stupid ass should be thrown out before he drives this country into a depression. I don't buy the "I inherited this mess as a result of a inflated economy." bullshit. Do you? EXCUSES. Fire this idiot.
Ah, thanks for the info. I was thinking there a way besides using the browser cache. Unfortunately, having IE only check sites once per session breaks a lot of sites, and makes it really difficult when doing web development. I have mine set to check every time. It would be nice if the feature was automatic, similar to how IE will scroll the page to close to where you were before when refreshing (works great on Slashdot discussions).
Close, but no cigar. I've mentioned this before other places, but it needs mentioning again.
The real issue, the one that remained unresolved throughout the 20th century, is this:
Sometimes, there is really nothing to do.
Let that sink in for a minute.
In the 20s, we all got mobile with cars and got wireless with radio (RCA was like Yahoo!).
Once most of the people who wanted model-Ts and vacuum-tube sets had 'em, the market saturated, the bubble burst, and people couldn't figure out what to do.
It took WW-II to get 'em interested in something again. The sequel involving Communists and a space race was pretty exciting too.
Then in the early 90s, no more Commies (none that really mattered, anyway) but that was OK because computers had been rolling along quite nicely (a spinoff of the space race, actually) and the Internet, whoooh boy! That was something.
The first warning sign was when computers actually fell in price. For years, they were about $2000, and they kept getting faster. When they started noticeably dropping in price circa 1997/1998, I remarked that we might be getting saturated. We are now certainly saturated. Almost everybody who wants a PC has one. Almost everybody who wants dial-up Internet in the US has it.
Broadband might have helped us, but this is now an area where the bad economy feeds on itself: consumers won't shell out for broadband when the next paycheck is in doubt. They may even cancel their dialup.
People need something to do. They want something to do.
I believe FDR actually had the right idea with some of his programs--the ones that built lasting infrastructure such as the TVA and Skyline Drive (note, the forced relocation of mountain people was poor execution, but the *idea* of creating a recreational area was a good one). The problem is that GWB is imitating some of FDR's mistakes when it comes to creating *permanent* beurocracies. The biggest of these mistakes was social security, which is just a big Ponzi scheme that has to collapse sooner or later.
When people don't know what to do, government spending can be a viable option, but it needs to be temporary, constructive, and produce something useful. How about grants for commuter rail in cities where it would be appropriate (e.g., full funding for the Las Vegas monorail would be really cool). How about an Apollo type program to create 100 mpg and/or alternative fuel cars that people will actually want to buy?
Instead, we will probably just create a few more government agencies.
War is an option too, but with the US reluctance to actually get involved with postwar reconstruction efforts, it seems like a bad idea. Already, the Afghan government is showing weakness because of our reluctance to really help stabilize it. If Karzai can't maintain power, GWB will be a domestic *and* a foreign failure. I doubt we'll do much better in Iraq. It's a real pity too, because I bet we could *easily* round up 50,000 military-age people who would be willing to go to Afghanistan and keep it clean until the locals learned how to be civilized. It's the old men that don't have the stomach for it these days--a complete reversal from the 1960s.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
maybe it's time to redistribute that wealth, right comrade?
please.
I thought bush got into the whitehouse by counting votes the way many of the businesses are being run?
Since most companies are totally honest, then you're admitting that the only problem with the last election was the one made up, by those who were too childish to admit they lost.
Good job. A few more paychecks being slashed for failed gov't programs, you'll be voting Republican yet!
Don't worry! My company will surely bail them out.
After all, where there's trouble (Enron, Global Crossing, etc.) there's JPMorgan Chase.
We a WorldCom customer an would like to know if we can cancel our existing contract because of this filing. We are in a 3 year contract as of 1/2002. Does WorldCom filing bankruptcy allow us to break our contract without penalty?
When I say "panicked", I really mean "panicked". As in, people went to sell some decent stock like INTC (Intel), and there were literally no buyers at any price.
So, not to make light of the corruption and distrust in the markets, but it's not as bad as 1929 yet. It's roughly about as bad as 1997. It is likely to get as bad as 1987, and it might get as bad as 1973.
Go read up on the "Nifty Fifty" ("one-decision stocks"). That's what the Internet boom was like. And the corruption now is like the Asian currency crises.
LOL.. this is almost funny. I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault. Not Congress. Not the SEnate. Not the last eight YEARS of ignoring signs and worrying about guys selling sawed off shotguns in the mountains rather than corporate scandal and greed.
Bush may not personally be responsible, but he and his father are so much involved in this sort of behaviour, and have been throughout their careers, that it's good to see the chickens coming home to roost.
I personally wouldn't be investing unless I had enough money to be a whale, rather than plankton, so to speak. Otherwise I'd be gambling on other people's honesty and the mechanisms of the State for reparation... and neither prospet fills me with confidence.
Hate to be a bible quoter.. but "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
Isn't that specific phrasing from Hamlet, and wasn't Polonius being represented as a sanctimonious fool throughout the play?
deus does not exist but if he does
Everyone here keeps saying that WC will do this and that under Ch. 11, get rid of debt, keep only the core good stuff, etc, etc & emerge leaner meaner, etc, etc.
Here's the problem: as most of us know, WC went on a binge for quite a while and bought everything in sight. Yes, their core data services unit still contains lots of bits, but all those employees that didn't get laid off from all those other companies that were absorbed were, over the years, shuffled all over the place, and the original folks that made the smaller units profitable aren't in the original groups they came from. Then, to stay with the company, those employees that remained had to learn and accept and become a part of the dominant corporate culture at WC, or be fired (or go insane).
So here's where the problem lies: the dominant corporate culture at WC is HORRIBLE. Ask anyone who works there, or ask anyone at the other (i.e, customer) end of the company what WC has really turned into. Most of the folks left there are either *ssholes, liars, or just don't give a f*ck anymore (from having to deal with the *ssholes & liars every day) and stay only because their worried they won't be able to get another job.
In other words, the folks runing the company, from the top down, are no longer (if they ever were) qualified to run the company.
Eventually the BR judge, and the creditors are going to figure this out and the judge is going to grant creditors motion to force them into Ch.7 so that at least creditors can get *something* back by selling off the remaining assets.
Good riddence anyway. It's how capitalism works. The sh*t companies go under; the good ones take up the slack -- and after that if there is even more slack to be taken up... well now, that's an opportunity for y'all isn't it?
Or maybe try this? "emerge worldcom"
gentoo rocks
How about: always. To list just one recent example: The murder rate in states that have reinstated the death penalty has decreased much faster than in states that haven't reinstated it. The effect is most pronounced in states that apply the death penalty most often. For example, in Texas the murder rate has fallen from 15.3 per 100,000 in 1990 to 6.1 per 100,000 in 1999.
In broader terms, it's not just stiffer penalties, but their enforcement that cuts the rate of crime. The dramatic drop in crime in the late 1980s and into the 1990s was largely attributable to the prison building programs of the 1980s. More prison cells=more repeat offenders (responsible for roughly 80 percent of violent crime) staying behind bars longer=general reduction in crime.
Conversly, much of Western Europe is experiencing much higher crime rates than the United States, despite those gun control laws. The rate of violent crime in London is now significantly higher than that of New York City (discounting September 11, of course). As to why that might be the case, I leave it as an execrise for the reader...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
We're clearly going into a new economical crisis.
That's a logical implication of the post 'new economy' wave. How many billion dollars have been wasted for the internet? How many cents did it bring?
The internet is a *toy*. It's a place where people who don't know what to do from their spare time can download warez and pr0n, and tell their life whoose nobody is interested in. The earth can turn without the internet, and very well.
Banks and other large institutions that need networking don't need the internet. They have always been using private networks or X25 networks.
There have been so many false hopes on the internet that real (not virtual) projects got few interest from investors.
Bulletin Board Systems and FidoNet, or basic internet with email and nntp is the only thing we really need to "get online". No need to waste plenty of dollars for big pipes that are just useful to divx, software sharing and other forms of piracy.
nah ...
I was working in Fiber Optics Industry, and WCOM as a client was getting flaky, and when their stock started falling, it was only a matter of time.
DONT TREAD ON ME MOÎΩN ÎABÃ
Whichever way you look at it this is the end of the line for corporate deregulation. Regulation is now going to be considered pensioner friendly and stockholder friendly.
Well, at least until the current round of presidential speechifying and toothless legislating subsides Wall Street's fears, and corporate America's hand returns to the cookie jar.
In and of themselves, public scandals tend not to result in meaningful and structural change. To move beyond political grandstanding and weak legislation (and the bills being looked at currently are very weak -- see CitizenWorks for more info) requires a significant, independent-minded citizen's movement. A corporate accountability movement of this type could begin with demanding reforms in governance and accounting practices (like forcing corporations to expense stock options, a measure rejected by congressional Democrats), and move on to demanding serious and structural changes, such as taking corporate money out of politics (which will require public financing of elections, and breaking up the corporate strangehold over the news media.
But expecting a significant trend to reverse deregulation to suddenly spring up amongst politicians who continue to take their orders from major corporate donors is, unfortunately, too optimistic.
At the very least we will see the sweatheart deals arranged by Enron and the Gramms to exclude energy derivatives from oversight being swept away.
Don't count on it. As far as I remember, the current legislation doesn't repeal Gramm's Enron bill.
But at the deeper level I think that politicians are not going to be able to score easy votes by dennouncing regulation.
No, few voters are going to get hot and bothered about changes in corporate accounting regulations. However, most of them know, pretty intuitively, that they're getting screwed by big business. Frankly, most of the world understands that the current economic order doesn't operate for their benefit (particularly folks in the two-thirds world who don't just lose money on Enron stock, but get displaced by Enron-financed dams).
And no, that's not Marxist babbling -- take a look at some polling numbers: 67% think most corporate executives are dishonest, 57% think white collar crime happens very often, and the percentage who name big business as the largest threat to America's future is at an all-time high (38%).
However, the public doesn't trust politicians to solve these (or most) problems, probably a leading cause of why fewer and fewer of them bother to vote. And nobody's going to trust grand-standing Democrats like Lieberman (who spends most of his time on his knees before the insurance industry) to take a firm stance against over-reaching corporate power.
IMHO, the only way we're going to see a viable political movement for corporate accountability is with a strong, progressive, independent third party. At the moment, both in the U.S. and around the world, that's the Green Party. Provided we continue moving beyond feel-good environmentalism, the Greens can be a grassroots and effective voice for change, by bringing up these issues when people are paying some attention to them (during the election season) and offering bold solutions, rather than more of the same focus-grouped bullshit. The Green Party in the U.S. is now organized in almost every state, and has a platform full of creative ways to advance real, grassroots democracy.
In closing (and for the purposes of extending my pomposity a bit further), I'd like to remind folks that corporate abuse of power affects everyone, in millions of ways -- whether you're a white-collar type whose 401(k) is suddenly worthless, a software developer who's forced to deal with ludicrous patents, or a worker whose job just got shipped to Mexico. And it will take all of us to effect the changes so desperately needed.
(P.S. Another great resource on corporate power is the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy.)
Red All Over: Rambling Missives from an Aspiring Revolutionary
So I'm going to have to be the first one to say it then?
...or MCI's latest shot at residential service.
Well, there goes "The Neighborhood"
"It was the fraud, not the clueless business plan
"
Funny thing that, I always thought the same about the Soviet Union... :-P
...that has discovered that big-enough revenue is not a secondary objective to doing business.
A discovery that will also come to open-source development companies in a couple of years.
Already most of your food is ultimately dependant on 5 or 6 food companies. Not that this is a good thing :-(
Not my point at all. You really need to get your head out of that old model. The world isn't quite so simple.
It was less than 100 years ago that Great Britain still ruled the waves and was the "serious" power in the world. Anyone suggesting that within fifty years all that would be gone would have been greeted with an "oh please". Shit happens and nobody is guaranteed endless time at the top of the pyramid.
In my personal opinion, I blame this whole mess on Bill Clinton himself (even though I know I'm going to be seriously modded way down for this =) ).
:-(
Given what we know about both Bill and Hillary Clinton's frequently shady dealings (the Whitewater fiasco, the Rose Law Firm record shredding, the mysterious deaths of close Clinton cronies Vince Foster and Ron Brown, and so on), plus the fact many people on Wall Street loved the Clintons, no wonder why much Wall Street followed the Clintons' example and started doing a lot of shady dealings themselves. It's only after the Clintons left the White House the whole mess has come home to roost.
I really want to find out just kind of shady dealings the likes of George Soros and the Goldman Sachs group (both have close links with the Clintons) have done between 1993 and 2000.
And we know what happened after the first Bush admin.-Clinton! Of course, if history repeats itself, we could end up with Hillary in the White House (ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!! )
However, we could ALSO end up with sex scandals of a Sapphic sort....
Now, if only this could happen to M$...
Can we get you to take a job at the RIAA, followed soon by the MPAA? I think my fellow Slashdotters would agree that they could use a bit of your "assistance."
Poor Penn Central!!!
I wouldn't worry too much about that. The quote is ascribed to Benjamin Franklin, but originates from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The closest you could probably come to that in the Bible is Romans 13:8 or for the old-school fans, Proberbs 22:7. The bible in general frowns on borrowing or loaning regardless of if usuary is involved or not. Apparently strife caused by the borrowing of tools between people is a timeless theme in humanity.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
It is the combination of the two. Either Bush did not know the lockup agreement had been cancelled in which case he was in breach of the lockup. Or if he knew the lockup had been cancelled he knew that the company had a severe liquidity problem and was guilty of insider trading.
It is a question of character. Some people will argue that a president's character should not be an issue. For my part, I have always considered it an issue. And Bush's actions in that instance do not speak well of his character.
You mean the 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude and the belief that spending 30 minutes talking about character issues means that Bush has character?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I didn't want to reveal this just yet, but I just learned that the American economy is ... an elaborate hoax.
This argument is starting to sound like Crossfire, easily one of the dumbest shows I've ever seen.
Why do people insist it is one side or the other? Isn't it more reasonable to say that deregulation of business combined with a failure of moral leadership might have led to these problems? And beyond that you might add in the business world's changes in incentives for executives (stock options, etc).
In most of these political finger pointings, you can find valid points about what went wrong. The real trick is to realize that in such a complex society, no ONE thing causes these problems. More likely, all sides are correct about what behaviors/laws/changes led to the problem and incorrect in their denials.
We (Americans) do seem to love conflict over consensus, and we love to stubbornly stand our ground and defend our party. In a separate thread on this article two people argued about whether the crimte rate declined due to the building of prisons (and retention of repeat offenders) versus the aging of the population and the availability of better economic opportunity... Isn't is most likely that these combined for the resulting effect?
Let's stop looking for cause -> effect and try factor + factor + factor -> effect.
Come play Moral Decay!
No, as a member of the working wealthy I pay AMT rates, my taxes were not reduced at all, except for the $500 prepayment that the democrats pushed through.
The tax cut is phased and the drainon the deficit is scheduled to increase, but it is incorrect to say that revenue has not already been lost.
This matter has already been investigated several times, by both parties. It was even used, unsuccessfully, as a campaign issue against Bush. Career workers in the SEC, who just happen to also be Democrats, say there's nothing here.
Another paid GOP stooge putting out the line from the talking points verbatim. First the SEC did not clear Bush, they said they have insufficient evidence to prosecute in a very unusual letter that was written just before Bush ran for Texas govenor. The administration refuses to let the details of the investigation be released.
The issue of whether Bush did something illegal is not the same as whether he did something that was unethical. Bush's insider trades may have been legal because the price of the stock rebounded the day after the announcement, however that does not clear Bush on the character issue, it was still unethical to dump the stock when he did.
After the Repubicans investigtated Whitewater for eight years at a cost of $70 million it is pretty weak that they should be crying uncle this soon into Harkengate, before the congressional hearings have even started. What are they scared of?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
LOL.. this is almost funny. I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault.
Almost, but not quite funny. Slashdot is billed to be "News for nerds." Nerds like to think themselves smarter than the average bear. The implication being that they understand complex things better than lusers. So if even if nerds are so misguided on this subject, how can anybody expect the luser public to understand it any better?
To me, it's more disappointing than funny :(
The president has a certain amount of expectation to speak on this, but he has n o REAL control.
Indeed.
Listen, folks, one man (or woman), be they the President of the United States or what-have-you, simply does not have that much control over the state of the U.S. or world economies. It's just too big and complex for that. And even if such a person did have that much control, one has to look at the period that led up to the condition, rather than the "now." The economy is a huge beast. In much the same way that a very large ship takes time to respond to the helm, it takes time for the economy to show the effects of government policy decisions.
Did you know that the U.S. economy was already in recovery before Bill Clinton was actually elected? Yet Mr. Clinton, in many peoples' minds, was single-handedly responsible for the recovery.
Likewise, today's economic conditions can hardly be blamed on a man whose only been in office a year and a half. Particularly since the dot-bomb, which started the current economic down-trend, started before he was even elected.
I'm not saying this is all Bill Clinton's fault either. I'm just saying that blaming the current President of the U.S. for current conditions simply shows you've been paying too much attention to the dominant media. The same media whose objective is to entertain, not inform.
I can't believe that it's sleezy business becuase if it was just sleezy business then someone more sleezy would rat them out for blackmail or political reasons. Or someone honest would say something.
Let's look at the scenarios you present:
1) Why don't competitors rat out sleazy businesses? Because like any snitch, you run the risk of being shoved out of the biz altogether. Business is buddy-buddy. In an environment of loose regulation and enforcement, ratting only gets the rat in trouble.
2) Why doesn't someone honest say something? Honest people have been saying these things about businesses for a long time. Read the more 'fringe' magazines like The Nation. There are always doomsayers and critics, but in good times no one listens to them. The Ides of March? Finally, whistleblowers almost always get in trouble, even if offered some sort of protection. Follow the case of any whistleblower...in two years they most likely are charged with something 'unrelated' or are removed from their respective industry. If you blow the whistle, your life in that industry is over.
The things that happend at Loki are the same types of things happening at WorldCom or Qwest, just on a smaller scale.
Here I don't agree with you...Loki really was just like most small businesses, which fail in their first few years. They may have inflated numbers (I don't know if they did or not), but their demise was like that of most small businesses. You do need to be fair to employees, but on the other hand in a small business you have to expect that you are living month to month, even when times are good. Large businesses have a greater ability to hedge against hard times, but sometimes crooked management will instead use that power to hedge themselves against hard times.
"The Buck stops here" sat on Harry Truman's desk. No matter the National subject, the sitting President will take the ultimate heat or credit for the end result. Wars on foreign soils, won or lost, will never be as important to voters as their net pay. When the next elections arrive, Bush's chances of re-election will mirror the economy's direction.
MadDad
"Hero worship - gods, goddesses, superheroes, oh my!"
Corporate corruption is an organized crime, just like running a numbers game is. You've got a group of people conspiring together to break laws for their benefit. That's how they are similar to the mob. Nobody at Enron kneecapped anybody, but that doesn't mean that they weren't an organized gang of crooks. In the US there are a set of laws known as RICO - Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations. They essentially (IIUnderstandC and IANAL) say that if you are the head of an organization that systemically breaks laws you are personally criminally responsible. They were originally created to combat organized crime by allowing the bosses to be arrested for what the underlings did, but they have been interpreted somewhat broadly - Operation Rescue was sued (albeit unsuccessfully) under the law. (Check out www.thirdamendment.com/rico for more details on how RICO is applied - rightly or wrongly.)
Now, according to graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/INS/RICO.html racketeering activity includes things like bribery, embeezlement from pension funds, wire fraud, financial institution fraud, obstruction of justice and criminal investigations, engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, as well as things like "unlawful substances" and "obscene materials". Furthermore, you are subject to RICO if you directly or indirectly recieve or invest any income from those activities, or use that income to control a company engaged in interstate or foriegn commerce. The WorldComs and Enrons of the world begin to edge into the RICO laws when they lie about profits (fraud) and shred documents (obstruction of justice) so that the C*Os can make big bucks. That's how corporate corruption is "the same classification as the mob".
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
You think Microsoft would hire the kind of deadwood that posts on Slashdot?
The Last President we had (heir Klinton) didn't do jack to stop Enron. He had the opportunity but he had his SEC guy looking the other way. Do you think Republicans are the only ones who engaged in this sort of shady behavior? Does making a could hundred thousands from Pork Bellies ring a bell (Hillary Clinton), or Millions from $100 investment and half of all earnings in a company due to the initial $100 investment (Terry McCauliffe). Its going down on both sides and the only people who are getting hurt are the people like us. The sooner we wake up and WE (the People) take back Government and make them accountable, the better it will be for all of us.
Interesting that you should mention that -- the gutless old men of today are probably the very same gutless young men of the 1960s.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
It doesn't really matter where the exact quote came from. The Bible is clear on the matter of usury.
Probably all Eric Raymond was able to do with the money he made from his 'sudden millionaire' adventure was enough money to extend his Green Egg Magazine subscription by another four years.
Oh.... wait....
That's Shakespeare (Hamlet), not the bible.
I love the fact that it is THE one guy in the hot seats fault. Not Congress. Not the SEnate. Not the last eight YEARS of ignoring signs and worrying about guys selling sawed off shotguns in the mountains rather than corporate scandal and greed.
I agree with you - in part. These scandals have been brewing for years, so it's not all Bush's fault. BUT, he ran on the idea that there needed to be fewer laws and less oversight for big business. His appointee to head the SEC was widely percieved to be pro-business and that was considered a feature, not a bug, by the Prez. Bush was wrong. Big businesses are sometimes run by crooks. The head of a regulatory agency shouldn't come in saying he's not going to look for problems. Bush needs to say "I was wrong. I want Congress to triple the size of the SEC. I want Harvey Pitt to crack some skulls, and if he won't do it, I'll hire somebody who will. I want to use RICO laws to nail CEO's and CFO's who defraud stockholders. I want Congress to pass a law allowing for mandatory minimum sentencing and asset forfeiture on corporate executives who lie, or are even suspected of lying to stockholders - it's what we do for drug dealers and these people are no better. I want the release of 'pro forma' profits in annual reports to be probable cause for an investigation." Then people would start to take him seriously. This could be a golden political oppurtunity for Bush to show that he really is tough on crime, not just somebody who supports the death penalty. I doubt he'll seize the chance though.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Enron and Worldcom. Like the twin towers of the WTC, their architecture ...
is driven by the pursuit of profit by a few to the exclusion of all other
values. The technical and social failings of city skyscrappers are mirrored
in corporate structure itself. Like a house of cards, the foundations
of that architecture is broke, and upon failure fails catastrophically.
Like the Soviet Union before it. From asshes
1. Create a company.
2. Buy, sell, employ annoying telemarketers, do whatever you please in order to make money. Our government won't care!
3. Make sure that you have the 'right' auditors. The pick of the day is Andersen.
4. Do NOT forget to state false earnings. The more you get, the more money you are able to collect. Never mind thousands of shareholders you'll fuck over. It is okay, well we're in the United States after all.
4. When shit hits the fan, blame everything on your auditors, since they were supposed to hide everything perfectly and its their fault for not hiding it properly!
5. If everything goes well, file for Chapter 11 or Chapter 7. Make sure that your personal assets are not involved by selling off your shares of the stock.
6. Remember: "its not me, its them" line might work very well in any court, as long as you have some people interested (significant amounts of cash can increase the interest).
The result: millions in your own pocket, thousands of shareholders without retirement money left and some people to pay for your mistakes. But who cares, this is the American way of living afterall.
P.S.: for better results, make sure that your company is affiliated with a political party, since that party will receive a chunck of blame when the company will go belly-up. Also, try to involve political and military leaders into investment, the higher, the better. In addition, after screwing with both our government (it didn't really care, but still) and the public (it does care, but they don't have enough power to fight you), don't forget to mention the 5th Amedment. It is guaranteed to you by the same government that you ended up fucking over.
If all else fails, Monica Lewinski will save the day.
> You think Microsoft would hire the kind of deadwood that posts on Slashdot?
Well, it's been rumored that even bill gates himself reads here. Who knows - Maybe I'm Bill and you don't even know it?
And I actually agree on that point -- it's a shame the Church's greed led it to drop that restriction. I've been reading some things recently about the Vatican Bank and Propaganda Due that fairly make the hair curl...
(I just wanted to make the point that people often use the Shakespeare quotation while forgetting the context of the scene.)
deus does not exist but if he does
Bull shit. The SEC is half full, which the President needs to fill (his job). The food and drug adminstration have been pleading with bush to fill missing leadership, also the Bush's job.
You can read about it at fool.com. I believe the article is called "Two Holes in Government"
Sure, maybe it isn't GWB's fault. He hasn't done anything but the war on terrorism (a sick joke at best) that has had any real effect. and even for that, he was probably just a figurehead.
Likewise, it isn't any more Clintons fault. he was just a figurehead, everything he was credited for was set up before he was elected. (well, everything that related to him being president)
Really, this slide in the economy has been going on for about 20 years. everything we've had since is artificial.
Have you ever noticed, for example, that every time the US economy starts to slide, we get a major war? WW1. WW2. Vietnam War (which most americans still don't know was a war of indepenence). The War on Drugs (tm). The War on Terrorism. It might seem odd that most of these wars weren't the US's fault, but why do they keep happening on time, then? and why never on the high points of the US economy?
I keep hearing "sooner or later, the people are gonna wake up and take this country back." So why hasn't it happened? Because americans have largely become apethetic, lazy, brainless slugs. they're never gonna wake up, so its really a case of "wait until the US economy falls". which, alas, is gonna be a couple bloody wars from now.
"Largest bankruptcy, ever!"
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
... create a system that makes a lot of people depend on it, steal money, file bankrupcy, get new loan (and steal more) because "people need our service". And you still believe that "the system works"???
Could you please keep your Jornal up to day with information who you currently work for and their ticker symbol? Thank you.
t.
PS. And, under any circumstances, I am begging you, PLEASE DO NOT WORK FOR YOURSELF!
Another absolutely laugh-riot bit of irony here is how US officials have been bitching at third world companies and governments for the past 20 years to "clean up the corruption" - blaming all the economic woes of those nations on fraud and bribery - when basically the same thing is going on right here at home.
Lovely.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
OK, so Clinton and the Democrats are sleazebags doing shady dealings. The trouble is, Bush and the Republicans are also sleazebags doing shady dealings. I'll happily grant that Clinton was all you say he is- now, are you going to come around suggesting Bush is any better? I mean, ANY better?
I voted for Nader for a reason. This IS the reason. I ask only that I get to vote for the guy again. And I'm aware he's a rich lawyer- but he makes crusades out of SPANKING people like this. At this time in American history, that is what we need. I would like to see Nader elected President, and to see him survive long enough that things get straightened out until maybe I _can_ find something in the two-deeply-entrenched-and-indistinguishable-party system that I would want to be associated with.
If I can't get that, I'll still try. To hell with your Bush and Clinton and Cheney and Gore etc etc. They're all SCUM!
Now mod me down, dammit! I scorn everybody! :D
Is it me, or does anyone else also want to smack this person and cry out, "Fuck your competitive spirit! That is what got you into this mess! Get some sense of perspective already!"
Only way that remark could have been more sick-humor is if it was, "We will emerge from Chapter 11 as quickly as possible and with our integrity and honesty unshaken"... sometimes you read the remarks of these people and you SO want to slap them...