Crap Throwing Monkey

What, now Bernie Ebbers stole your stock and shipped it to India? Aside from that being one of the most egregious non-sequitors in recent memory of the board...by then, I'll be sitting on a beach sipping mai-tais watching my portfolio earn 20%. That's because I manage my money, and don't trust Wall Street to do what's best for me.

Most of us would check to make sure we were getting a watch BEFORE we left the store. Most of us would also go get our money back, and not B word that the laws punishing people who pass off dog sh-- as watches are too weak because we were dumb enough to be taken in by it.

While I'm willing to accept that government has a role in requiring companies to not commit fraud...that acceptance doesn't extend to listening to people whine "Big Bad Wall Street took my money!" who have little if any idea how the process works. BTW, Newbie...that analysts work for brokerages. It's their job to support the sales force, not the individual investor. If you bought because the analysts told you to...go to Vegas and hit the craps table instead next time. The odds are better. If, on the other hand, you bought on your own analysis...we live in an imperfect world, better luck next time, hope you're double-checking your analysis as strenuously as you're bitching about the management you had every right to vote out...

So you bought the bill of goods they sold you, and it's their fault. How is it that I looked at the same bill of goods and said "Geez, this company is crap...too much debt, not enough equity, and horribly overvalued."? Yes, management committed fraud...but take responsibility for your own mistakes at the same time. You made a bad decision. Live with it.

Actually, it's probably not WorldCom that got your money. You didn't give them a loan, you purchased part of the company...and most likely, from someone else. Of course, you probably won't understand the difference between loaning someone money and buying a share of an asset from them...which is a pretty clear indicator that you probably shouldn't be investing. One also wonders why you owned WorldCom to begin with. That company had a long history of being a dog**** shell of a real business long before it collapsed. Next time, do your homework on the companies you buy. Management may have committed fraud, but you were the one that bought the stock.

I don't have to know that she was buried alive to know there's monsters in the world. I also don't think that not releasing every gory detail of the story is "brushing it under the table". If so...they why aren't you bitching and moaning about how the number of times the guy penetrated her is being "brushed under the table" and hindering your defense of your family? Or is that gory detail somehow less pertinent than her being buried alive?

You talking about the media doing it or a private citizen? If the former: voyeurism sells. If the latter: voyeurism sells, but in the immortal words of Captain Jack Sparrow, "Not all treasure is silver and gold."

Me with lofty vision, and you with a very limited horizon...

Knowing she was buried alive is going to help you protect your family?

What, you're implying that it's okay to hunt cats?

Hey, we agree on something. Never thought that would happen...

Because it might lead to actual knowledge, and acting from a position of knowledge is a bad thing since American politics as practiced by the paste-eating masses is either ignorant or mindlessly reactionary.

Does this mean RkFast and I can get back to our crap throwing contest?

"Eccentric billionaire" is an awfully polite way of putting it... Via Occam's Razor...given that Snyder has historically shown a meddlesome tendency towards managing his franchise as though he's in a Fantasy Football league, I would not be the least bit surprised if Snyder made the trade on his own on the principle that "two first round picks are better than one". and that the first Gibbs' heard about it was Snyder peeing his pants with joy saying "Guess what, Joe...I got us an extra first round pick!"

Or both. Truly disgusting piece of legislative garbage.

Well...personally, I don't usually. Logic behind that decision being that there's plenty of organizations out there that compile the data I find relevant for my purposes, actually reading the company's documentation thoroughly doesn't usually buy me much over that, and won't protect me from cases of outright fraud (as I don't really know how to detect it from a fraudulent 10Q or 10K anyway)...so usually, why bother? From a risk-reward standpoint, it's not cost-effective for me. Of course, that's a conscious decision based on an actual risk-reward analysis, and it doesn't mean that I can't read corporate documentation if I feel so compelled. And in most of the recent instances of corporate fraud, there were indications outside regulatory disclosure that would indicate the companies were flaky anyway (e.g. Enron's persistent and vocal statements that they couldn't provide full disclosure as required by regulations because to do so wold divulge trade secrets. "We can't tell you, because if we do we won't make money"??? If that's not a giant red flag, I don't know what is...)

Please...explain what's wrong with the current laws on the subject. Start with ditching this line of thought. "Paying their debt back to the old shareholders"? Shareholders don't hold debt. "Better corporate discloser [sic] for publicly trade companies and stricter bookkeeping regulations and procedures"? Do you have any idea how strict disclosure regulations are right now? Do you even understand that the problem wasn't that the law was too weak, but that it was violated, which is why these crooks are slowly but surely being sent to jail in the first place? Are you aware that the main problem not covered under the law was the relative lack of independence of "independent" auditors...which has already been addressed by the SEC. You honestly need to go out and learn something of what's transpired since...well, since the founding of the Securites and Exchange Commission in the '30s.

Again...read the book. Fleischer's commentary on the media is as much about their desire to report conflict (and, in the absence of real conflict, to create it) as their left-leaning bias. And despite Fleischer's own right-leaning bias (which, as you'd expect, is present...and like I said, he repeats the "liberal bias" complaint so much it sounds like so much whining), he makes some very good points that stand up pretty well to an objective reading. Overall, he comes across as a guy who's at least trying to be objective about it. And, again as I said, it doesn't even claim to be a scholarly treatment of the subject...I merely suggest that there's good points made for any objective (i.e. non-partisan) reading of it. As for the media's role in Whitewater...don't even get me started on that whole mess. Aside from pointing it out as a prime example of the media's orientation towards reporting conflict, all I have to say on the subject is that it was an egregious example of gross irresponsibility on Starr's part (in greatly overstepping the bounds of his investigational mandate) and the media's part (in inflating the whole thing WAY out of proportion - never have so many words and so much mindless analysis and so much outrage been generated by a half-dozen blow jobs). Clinton's contribution to irresponsibility in failing to keep it zipped and choosing an young immature blabbermouth as a cheap tawdry "mistress" (at least Jack Kennedy understood the meaning of "discretion") is, of course, understood and needn't be discussed.

Didn't we just blast the hell out of someone for just this same BS logic concerning reform in the Catholic Church: the idea that A's transgressions are somehow diminished by the completely unrelated failings of B and C? Delay's problems have nothing to do with Kennedy or Byrd. They're Delay's. And let's face it...if the pez-head can't even accept that law can be researched on line these days, it calls into question the idea of whether or not he should be making them.

Uhhh...there's already laws meant to stamp out corporate abuse. That's why a lot of these bozos are being tried, convicted, and sent to jail: because they broke the law. So let's pass more laws. I'm sure dishonest CEO's won't break the new ones...

Of course, it takes them about six hundred years or so...but they do get around to it eventually...

Still better than Providian, who offered me $43,000 in cash advances on an $8k credit limit. Sure...no problem, I'll just go $35k over my credit limit, I'm sure you won't sock me with all sorts of charges for it. Although once MBNA raised my credit limit to a million dollars (no, that's not a typo) even though I told them not to. I kept it that high for one month, just to get the statement that showed the million dollar limit, then told them to lower it back down to $10k or so. The only credit card I like is Discover...and that's just because I pay it off in full every month, so I incur no charges but get the 0.5% cash back, and resist all their telemarketing efforts to screw me over. Rare that you can actually find a credit card that you (rather than the company) can manage in a way that makes you money.

Not all sh---slinging simians are literally so... And yes, "malformed". I haven't forgotten your parrotting of Toland's "FDR caused Pearl Harbor" crap years ago...

Same bill. Though if you talk to some of the window-lickers here he's just trying to right two centuries of judicial dictatorship inflicted by the Marbury v. Madison decision. I know it's illegal to threaten the President, even in jest...but is it likewise illegal to point out that there's nothing wrong with Delay that a bloody head would wouldn't cure?

As I said, it's not based on nothing. It's based on the fact that you're an idiot.