From Forbes.com: "Major announced settlements and fines assessed to U.S. financial institutions have now surpassed $4.2 billion, 43% more than 2002's figure. And thanks to the ongoing mutual fund scandal, regulatory and judicial penalties could be even higher in 2004. Already the Putnam Investments unit of Marsh & McLennan agreed to as-of-yet undetermined monetary penalties and restitution with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission... Major announced settlements and fines assessed to U.S. financial institutions have now surpassed $4.2 billion, 43% more than 2002's figure. And thanks to the ongoing mutual fund scandal, regulatory and judicial penalties could be even higher in 2004. Already the Putnam Investments unit of Marsh & McLennan agreed to as-of-yet undetermined monetary penalties and restitution with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission."

A.C. Thompson and James A. Thompson write for In These Times: "The Bush administration is quietly seeking to roll back oversight of the banking business and the scandal-riddled securities market through two pending proposals--a planned rule change for the banking industry and a house bill--that diminish the ability of states to police banks and stock brokers. The plans are worrisome because the federal government has been largely MIA when it comes to cracking down on corporate crooks in the post-Enron era. While the feds have grabbed headlines with a few high-profile indictments, state law enforcers--most notably New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer--are taking a far more active role in purging Wall Street of con artists and thieves."

"Almost half America's military spending now flows to corporations, and some of the biggest defense contractors are crooks. Repeat offenders. Incorrigibles. In this era of supposedly tough-on-crime politicians across the spectrum, shouldn't we have a 'three strikes' law applied to these corporadoes?... 'In 2002, nearly a third of government contract dollars went to the top ten contractors. Many of these companies are also on [the Project for Government Oversight's] top ten misconduct list,' says Danielle Brian, executive director of POGO. 'Why does taxpayer money continue to flow to contractors who cannot keep a clean track record?'... Of the 43 largest corporations doing business with the federal government, POGO discovered that only one - the aircraft division of General Electric - had ever been suspended from contracting. A penalty that lasted five whole days. In California, hundreds have been sentenced to 25 years or more because some penny-ante theft was their third felony."

From Citizen Works: "The SEC Chairman indicated last week that the SEC will soon consider proposals to give shareholders more access to company proxy statements, which list nominations for the board of directors. If approved, this widely-anticipated proposal could greatly enhance the ability of shareholders to nominate company directors. Under current rules, shareholders must go through a costly and difficult process to nominate directors. This proposal is widely seen as a way to increase the representation of minority shareholders on the board and make boards more independent of management. This proposal has enjoyed particular support among many shareholder activists, especially unions, state pension funds, and socially responsible investors. Now is a good time to remind the SEC just how important it is to open up the proxy statement to minority shareholders to create more balanced and independent corporate boards. Write to: chairmanoffice@sec.gov" For more info, click below.

"Corporations using offshore tax dodges are deserting America in a time of trouble, says the Bermuda Project. As Americans prepare to pay their taxes, corporate fat cats are abandoning our country to avoid paying their fair share." Watch the powerful commercials.

CNN.com reports: "William Webster resigned Tuesday from a newly created board meant to police the accounting industry as government efforts to clean up financial book-cooking appeared to trip over another hurdle....Pitt backed Webster's appointment. But Pitt resigned after failing to tell fellow SEC commissioners, and the White House, about Webster's role as head of the audit committee at US Technologies, a Washington, DC-based Internet investment firm facing shareholder lawsuits accusing it of fraud....The SEC inspector general and Congress' auditing arm, the General Accounting Office, are investigating the circumstances surrounding Webster's appointment, and the Senate Banking Committee plans hearings. Webster fired US Technologies' outside auditors last year when he headed the board of directors' auditing committee. The auditing firm, BDO Seidman, recently alleged that Webster had made 'false and misleading statements' about how much he knew about the company's financial problems."

Salon.com reports: "The chief accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission resigned Friday amid investigations into his role in the selection of former CIA and FBI chief William Webster to head a new accounting oversight board. The move by Robert Herdman came just three days after SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, a Bush appointee who pushed Webster's appointment, resigned under pressure. Herdman's abrupt departure deepened the sense of turmoil at the market watchdog agency at a time when it must resolve a wave of accounting scandals that shook Americans' confidence in the stock market and corporate integrity....Pitt's naming of Herdman to the post about a year ago generated some controversy. Herdman was an executive of Ernst & Young, one of the Big Five accounting firms. The SEC has brought two auditor independence actions in recent years against Ernst & Young."

Marcy Gordon reports: "Former FBI and CIA chief William Webster, whose appointment to head a new accounting oversight board ignited sharp debate, is considering stepping down amid the controversy that has also ensnared Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt. Webster said he will step aside if he decides he can't be effective heading the board mandated by Congress in response to the wave of corporate accounting scandals...'I'm not the only one that can do this job,' Webster told The New York Times. 'If I conclude my ability to serve impedes on the ability of the board to function, I will step aside.'...Webster headed the audit committee of U.S. Technologies' board of directors when it fired the company's outside accountants last year. Washington-based U.S. Technologies now is considered insolvent and faces fraud accusations." Webster was CIA Director under Bush Sr. who helped cover-up Iran-Contra. Webster refused to release Iran-Contra material ordered by Judge Hilton.

"US corporate lawyers will be required to blow the whistle on company officials who violate securities and other laws, under a proposal expected to be unveiled today by the Securities and Exchange Commission. After cracking down on accountants and stock analysts, the SEC will target lawyers in an attempt to prevent further corporate governance problems at US corporations. The move represents a dramatic increase in federal regulation of a traditionally self-governing profession. The proposal will implement part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed by Congress in July after the Enron and WorldCom scandals, which instructs the SEC to adopt "minimum standards of professional conduct for attorneys", including a requirement that lawyers report wrongdoing up the chain of command at a company. The rule will be publicly debated for several weeks before final adoption. Many lawyers have expressed deep concern at the requirement, which they say is vague and could turn them into corporate spies."

NYTimes.com reports: "The political troubles of the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission deepened today when the senator who will become the senior Republican on the banking committee supported calls by Democrats for hearings into the selection of an overseer of the accounting profession. The senator, Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, criticized the judgment of the S.E.C. chairman, Harvey L. Pitt. He cited Mr. Pitt's failure to tell other commissioners that William H. Webster, the man picked to lead the accounting oversight board, had headed the audit committee of a company accused of fraud....The company and its chief executive, who had recruited Mr. Webster, are under a criminal investigation and have been sued by investors who contend that they have lost millions of dollars. The company is now virtually insolvent." So Pitt withheld substantive information just like Bush withheld the NKorean nuclear info from Congress; ends justify the means? No integrity!

"MOYERS: Joining me now is the man just about everyone wanted to be the new public watchdog, the man to keep an eye on the books. Everyone, that is, except the industry's friends in Washington. For nearly a decade he's been the chairman and CEO of one of the company's leading providers of financial services, TIAA CREF, the pension system for more than two and a half million people primarily in the education field. He and his colleagues manage $250 billion of investments in retirement funds. MOYERS: What does it say to you, John Biggs, that the chairman of the SEC withheld from the other four commissioners information about the former director of the CIA and FBI, who both of us know, that this former director of the FBI and CIA had been head of an audit committee of a company that is being investigated for fraud, and that the outside auditors came to his audit committee, told him there's a problem and they dismissed the outside auditors. They didn't want to know the truth."

CNN.com reports: "The White House said Friday it was content to allow the Securities and Exchange Commission to handle an investigation into the choice of William Webster to a new national accounting oversight board. The White House also reiterated its confidence in SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, who failed to tell fellow commissioners that Webster, the former head of the FBI and CIA, was chairman of the audit committee of U.S. Technologies Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based company that has been accused of fraud, according to people at the agency familiar with the matter. Webster was elected a week ago, in a 3-2 vote along party lines, to head the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. The revelation of Pitt's lack of full disclosure during the selection process has cast a cloud over the board and prompted an inquiry by SEC Inspector General Walter Stachnik."

On 10-25-02, SEC chairman Harvey Pitt pushed through the appointment of William Webster as the Auditor-in-Chief. But he didn't tell the other SEC commissioners that Webster chaired the audit committee of U.S. Technologies, which is now being sued by investors for fraud. This is a scandal that should result in the resignations of Webster, Pitt, and the two Republican commissioners who voted for Webster. But Pitt seems to think he can weather the storm by having the SEC "investigate" itself. Pitt is just trying to sabotage corporate oversight, because he works for the most CORRUPT administration in history. Impeach Bush Now!

"In a scathing scoop, the NYT says that shortly before William Webster was appointed to head the SEC's new accounting oversight board, he told SEC chairman Harvey Pitt that he had recently headed the auditing board of a company that's being sued for fraud. Webster says Pitt told him that his people had checked it out and it wasn't a problem. But the NYT says that Pitt didn't tell any of the SEC's four commissioners before they voted on Webster's nomination. Nor, says the Times, does it seem that Pitt or any of his staff contacted the players in the dispute to look into the merit of the accusations. According to the Times, after outside auditors hired by the company flagged some iffy accounting practices, they were fired by Webster's auditing committee. Meanwhile, investors have filed lawsuits alleging accounting fraud that happened after the auditing firm was fired and while Webster was still on the board." (Slate)

David Hilzenrath reports: "The Securities and Exchange Commission appeared headed toward a partisan split today on the selection of the chairman of a new board to clean up the accounting industry, with William H. Webster, who has headed both the FBI and the CIA, likely to be appointed over Democratic objections, sources close to the process said. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card called Webster this week and asked him to accept the job, sources said. The SEC's two Democratic commissioners, backed by investor advocates and Democratic congressional leaders, plan to vote for retirement fund executive John H. Biggs, who has advocated stricter regulation of corporate auditors, sources said...appointment of the board is central to the government's efforts to restore investors' confidence in the stock markets after a series of corporate accounting scandals at companies such as Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. helped erase billions of dollars of shareholders' funds." Spooky, eh?

The NY Times News Services exposed a new looming financial crisis facing 45 million Americans: their traditional pension plans. Companies are allowed to estimate their pension funds' average annual returns, and report that estimate as profit, providing them with a pad against actual losses. One estimate is that 50 of the US's largest companies counted $54 billion in pension fund gains as profits, when they actually lost $35 billion. That's the scandal: phantom earnings. This poses a formidable threat to the economy because companies ultimately will have to fund these underfunded pension funds when they can least afford to do so. More disastrous would be a vicious cycle: companies refraining from new capital investments to fund pensions, further depressing the the stock market and raising capital costs. "The overhaul of accounting standards must be aimed at revealing an enterprise's true state of affairs, and forcing a separate disclosure of more intangible projections."

NYTimes.com reports: "Less than three months ago, (Mr.) Bush signed with great fanfare sweeping corporate antifraud legislation that called for a huge increase in the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission to police corporate America and clean up Wall Street. Now the White House is backing off the budget provision and urging Congress to provide the agency with 27 percent less money than the new law authorized....Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, the Maryland Democrat who was the principal author of the legislation, called the White House position 'disheartening' and said that its proposed budget would fall far short of what is necessary for the agency to be effective...Democrats said that the White House position reflected the calculation that the corporate scandals have moved to the back burner, and therefore the White House does not need to honor the provision in the legislation that calls for the higher financing."

Molly Ivins writes: "We just lost the whole ballgame on corporate reform -- without the news even making it to the front page. The sick, sad tidings were tucked away discreetly on the business pages: "SEC Chief Hedges on Accounting Regulator." Now there's a sexy headline. All of you who were shafted by Enron, shucked by Worldcom, jived by Global Crossing, everyone whose 401(k) is now a 201(k) (I think that's Paul Begala's line), you just got screwed again. They're not going to fix it. They've already called off the reform effort; it's over. Corporate muscle showed up and shut it down. Forget expensing options, independent directors, going after offshore shams, derivatives regulation. For that matter, forget even basic reforms like separating the auditing and consulting functions of accounting firms and rotating accounting firms every few years. Bottom line: It's all going to happen again. We learned zip from the entire financial collapse. Our political system is too bought-off..."

The Daily Enron writes, "Have corporate evildoers placed a mole at the head of the SEC?... When a new oversight board was created to oversee the accounting profession Pitt gained a good deal of credibility by his choice to head it. He suggested respected pension-fund executive John H. Biggs [who] was known for his tough, no nonsense approach to accounting reforms... But, as the October 28 deadline approached to formally name someone to that post, Pitt suddenly reversed himself... Instead, Pitt will try to place accounting industry-friendly Donald J. Kirk in the post... 'The accounting profession is still engaged in sort of a rear-guard action to see if they can try to weaken the ultimate oversight board that's appointed... including derailing Biggs's nomination,' a congressional source told the Washington Post... If Harvey Pitt is not a mole at the top of the SEC for the accounting and investment banking professions, he is sure doing a good imitation of one."

Robert Borosage writes: "In August, Bush took time from his month-long vacation to travel to WorldCom territory in Mississippi. Saying that he was 'disillusioned' with corporate scandals, he demanded that the Senate act immediately to join the Republican majority in the House in passing pension reform legislation. What [Bush] did not say is that the House 'pension reform' bill would actually deprive millions of workers of literally billions in corporate contributions to 401(k) plans. That's right. In the wake of the stock market collapse and the corporate scandals, the Republican House passed a 'pension reform' that would enable companies to lavish retirement benefits on their executives while doing nothing for the bulk of their employees." This is the perfect GOP crime, designed to pay off their corporate paymasters. Defeat ALL Republicans!

Molly Ivins writes, "Nothing like a lot of distracting saber-rattling to get you to take your eyes off the shell with the pea under it... Listening to Bush at his Economic Forum in Waco, one would have thought that the Sarbanes bill was his very own pet project. [The] corporations that use offshore mail-drops to evade taxes use our air, our water and our roads, they are protected by our laws, our police and our military, and they can damn well help pay the taxes. Is anyone ready to admit yet that permitting banks, brokerage firms and insurance companies to merge was a rancid idea? We can thank Phil Gramm, the senator from Enron, for that one. Anyone ready to tackle derivatives yet? Because I guarantee you, if we don't regulate derivatives, we're going to see a mess that will make Enron look like patty-cake. Whichever party gets out in front on these issues is going to have an overwhelming advantage in the fall." Are you listening, Democrats?

Molly Ivins writes that the Bush WacoFest "raises the question, 'By how much don't they get it?'... This Potemkin Village of diversity lacked just one thing -- anyone with a good idea... The country is in a world of economic trouble because of an immense tax cut for the rich and 20 years of deregulation. So everyone at Potemkin Village favored more tax cuts for the rich and slashing that terrible government regulation that is strangling big business today. We could dismiss this exercise in complacent stupidity for the silly political charade it actually was, but there was a real danger at Waco, too: the horrible possibility that George W Bush actually believes that was a cross-section of America... In the meantime, [Bush kept] repeating the same fatuous remarks. 'I want a self-regulating (financial) industry,' 'I want to see a self-policing industry.' I want to see pigs fly."

Washington Post's Dan Morgan writes, "On April 13, 1938, Richard Whitney -- president of the New York Stock Exchange and personification of Wall Street aristocracy -- entered New York's Sing Sing Prison in handcuffs to begin a five- to 10-year sentence for embezzling millions of dollars from his clients. On the same day, his wife was reduced to begging a bankruptcy referee to return a few items of her personal jewelry taken to satisfy creditors. Justice for corporate crooks was swift and severe in those middle years of the New Deal. Whitney went to prison just five weeks after the Exchange announced it had found evidence of misconduct. Even before he was behind bars, authorities were moving to sell off his Manhattan town house, New Jersey hunt country estate and thoroughbred horses to pay those he had cheated." When will Bush throw Ken Lay in the pokey and make Linda beg for her jewelry? We're still waiting...

Tapped reports on "communications consultant Jim Grossfeld, who suggests that it's high time that Democrats put forward an 'Investor's Bill of Rights.' Grossfeld... worries that right now the talking points many Dems are using make them sound like they're speaking to an accountant's convention. 'Millions of working families and retirees have just been robbed of their dreams. If there was ever a time for Democrats to talk about standing up and fighting back this is it,' Grossfeld told us. 'Talking about corporate accountability isn't bad, but being the party of investor's rights is better.' Hmm. We're all about the Dems getting fired up, bashing chests, etcetera. We like it." So do we!!

The Angry Liberal writes, "The other shoe hit the ground in Washington just hours after the signing ceremony. Before the disappearing ink making up Bush's signature had even begun to fade, the word came down from his administration that Congress really didn't mean to write in all of that federal whistle-blower protection for courageous citizens who might want to come forward and expose wrongdoing at their places of employment. What Congress really meant, according to Ari Fleischer, is that the new law only protects whistle-blowers who fink on their bosses in front of a congressional committee during the course of an official congressional investigation. An attempt to inform Congress of corporate funny business under any other circumstances, according to Fleischer, could result in the patriotic American who had the guts to come forward losing his or her job, and there was nothing the federal government could do about it." Impeach Bush Now!

"Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the White House views the provision as shielding whistle-blowers from company retaliation only if they talk to a congressional committee 'in the course of an investigation.' The protections would not apply when evidence is provided to individual lawmakers or aides, she said...The Bush administration interpretation could most affect lawmakers — usually those in the minority party who cannot control whether full committees launch formal investigations — who undertake their own inquiries or receive information from constituents...Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, and Charles Grassley, R-IA, who crafted the whistle-blower section, on Wednesday asked the White House to reconsider what they called a narrow and flawed interpretation that is 'at odds with the plain language of the statute and risks chilling corporate whistleblowers who wish to report securities fraud to members of Congress.'"

"Against all odds a strong corporate responsibility law pushed by Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)...landed on the President's [sic]desk...a month ago the measure was given no chance of passage as...Republicans worked feverishly to bottle the Sarbanes measure in committee. But, with corporate America looking a bit like Pearl Harbor the day after, and public anger at the boiling point, Republicans deserted the White House and rushed to support the Sarbanes bill. Now the President [sic] had to sign the thing...Cheney preferred to attend a fundraiser in Ohio rather than be photographed standing next to a block-letter sign reading 'Corporate Responsibility.'...The new law comes at a particularly inopportune time...Cheney faces an SEC inquiry into accounting changes made by Halliburton Co. when he was chief executive. While Cheney was absent from the signing, he was not entirely forgotten. He was spoofed by a protester dressed as Hallibacon, 'the corporate crime-fighting pig.'"

O'Reilly-Sucks.com writes: "On December 20, 1995, President Clinton vetoed the Public Securities Litigation Reform Act, which would have restricted lawsuits against corporation accused of securities fraud. In his veto message, Clinton presciently noted that while he supported the notion of reducing frivolous lawsuits: 'I am not, however, willing to sign legislation that will have the effect of closing the courthouse door on investors who have legitimate claims. Those who are the victims of fraud should have recourse in our courts. Our markets are as strong and effective as they are because they operate -- and are seen to operate -- with integrity. I believe that this bill, as modified in conference, could erode this crucial basis of our markets' strength.' The GOP Congress overrode Clinton's veto... What's that you say, WSJ? MSNBC? FOX? CNN? Clinton was to blame? Not..."

Hours after Bush signed a law on Tuesday to combat corporate crime, key lawmakers said they were concerned he may be trying to roll back provisions that protect whistle-blowers who come forward with allegations of fraud.

"Former President Bill Clinton today hailed his own efforts to increase the oversight of corporate governance and criticized Republicans and Harvey L. Pitt, currently the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying they had frustrated Mr. Clinton's efforts at reform. He said Republicans thus deserved some of the blame for the current flight of foreign capital from United States markets...he chided Republicans, who he said had blocked his administration's efforts to, among other things, bar accounting firms from working as auditors and consultants for the same companies...'Harvey Pitt was the leader trying to stop us from ending those kind of abuses. That is a matter of record'...Mr. Clinton also said he had been overridden by Republicans when he vetoed a securities-industry bill he said would have 'basically cut off investors from being able to sue if they were getting the shaft.'"

Gary Weiss writes in a Business Week Special Report: "Controversy rages over Pitt's history of legal work for Big Five accounting firms, including Enron auditor Arthur Andersen, which threatens to undermine his leadership in formulating accounting reforms. And Pitt's conflict-of-interest nightmare may only be just beginning...The heart of his future difficulties can be found in a single-spaced, six-page document that Pitt filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics on May 24, 2001, after he was nominated to the SEC." Read this list of clients from whom Pitt received $5,000 or more since Jan. 1, 1999 by clicking n the link, 'Table: Potential Minefields (extended)' "Virtually all could be affected by SEC work in the coming years...Pitt has dealt with potential conflicts by hewing strictly to the law...But potential conflicts won't go away just because Pitt is following the rules...His credibility is open to serious question on many other subjects vital to the markets."

Chris Bury of ABCNEWS.com and Nightline reports: "Since President [sic] Bush went to Wall Street demanding, 'a new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community,' the stock markets have responded with a resounding 'raspberry.' Indeed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has now plunged hundreds of points since his highly anticipated July 9th address to shore up confidence in corporate America. Bush's clarion calls for cleaning up corporate corruption have largely fallen on deaf ears, analysts suggest, because Wall Street sees them more as rhetoric than reform. Even that rhetoric has lost steam since it has collided with questions about the president's [sic] own business past...'Here he is lecturing Wall Street about corporate responsibility, including loans to themselves...when he himself was with a company that was skating on the edge of propriety,'" notes Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity.

"With a 97-0 vote, the Democrat-led Senate passed a strong corporate responsibility bill that will prevent future scandals similar to the ones currently plaguing Wall Street and costing millions of Americans their jobs and life savings. But these strong reforms still face hurdles from corporate lobbyists and Republican leaders intent on watering down the most important provisions of the bill… Among other provisions, the Sarbanes bill would: Set up an independent committee to oversee the accounting and auditing of publicly traded companies; Prevent conflicts of interest by ensuring that firms that perform audits do not provide consulting to the same companies they audit; Require CEOs and CFOs of public companies to certify their financial reports; Make securities fraud a criminal offense and increase sentences for fraud... The GOP bill does not prevent auditor conflicts, create an independent board to oversee auditors, or hold corporate executives accountable for fraud."

Washington Post reports, "While President [sic] Bush was delivering his long-awaited speech on corporate governance Tuesday, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey L. Pitt was exactly where many Bush aides wanted him to be: on a week-long beach vacation... The arms-length treatment of Pitt underscores a dilemma for Bush and his radioactive SEC chairman. Many Democrats and even a few Republicans have called for Pitt's resignation because of his alleged conflicts of interest and ties to the accounting industry. There is no sign that Bush is even thinking of dropping Pitt. But whether Pitt stays or goes, he is a potential liability... In his first speech as SEC chairman last year, Pitt told an audience of auditors that the SEC would be 'a kinder and gentler place for accountants'... As a lawyer, Pitt favored restricting federal oversight of auditing firms. Over the years, Pitt has represented figures such as Ivan Boesky and Michael Saylor in SEC actions."

"Sen. John McCain on Thursday said a corporate reform package working its way through the Senate could go further to rein in abuses that have cost workers thousands of jobs and investors billions of dollars. The Arizona Republican also repeated a call first voiced earlier this week for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt to step down, saying that his past ties to the accounting industry undercut the agency's authority... In his speech, McCain noted that Pitt has sat out 29 SEC votes in the past 10 months, in keeping with a pledge to recuse himself for one year from matters concerning past accounting industry clients. McCain said 'it is unlikely that the public will have confidence in his decisions when his period of recusal ends next month.' McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, said he supports the accounting reform bill sponsored by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-MD, and expected to clear the chamber with bipartisan support by early next week."

Robert Kuttner writes, "George W Bush is suddenly vulnerable on the defining domestic issue of his presidency [sic]... Bush is at risk of becoming a Cinderella president. [The domestic economic crisis could turn him back into a bumpkin. Karl Rove] has sought to blur the differences between Bush and his political opponents -- to 'take Democratic issues off the table,' as Rove likes to say... But this act will be much tougher to pull off. Real reform demands not just tougher penalties; it will require an ideological reversal of two decades of Republican theory and practice... Moreover, the career of George Bush himself epitomizes the kind of self-dealing and insider enrichment that men like Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers raised to new heights. Bush can tactically shift his current policies, but he can't erase his own record. Just as one corporation after another now faces close scrutiny of past dealings, so does Bush."

Oreilly-sucks.com writes, "Have you noticed that the right wing has suddenly grown almost silent over how Bill Clinton and the Democrats were the real cause behind the Enron scandal? How come? Simple. Clinton and the Democrats did not cause the Enron disaster. The Clinton Administration tried to PREVENT disasters like Enron from occurring -- and were stopped by the deregulation-crazed, corporate shill Republicans. Here's a handy guide on the subject, with half-a-dozen of the bigger reasons why the right wing has suddenly gone missing on this matter. Download it and send it to your friends -- and to anyone out there who still thinks it's possible to fob this Republican scandal off onto Bill Clinton and the Democrats."

House Speaker Dick Gephardt unveiled "The Investors' and Employees' Bill of Rights, [which] includes key Democratic proposals to stamp out corporate malfeasance and restore people's faith in free markets. These initiatives have been blocked by the Republican majority in the House... The enclosed agenda makes it clear that Democrats are leading the charge to impose tough new criminal penalties on corrupt corporate executives; prevent corporations from expatriating to avoid paying US taxes; hold executives accountable for dishonest bookkeeping; limit golden parachutes for CEOs whose companies have gone belly-up; require greater disclosure of insider transactions; and give the SEC the resources it needs to enforce corporate accountability... This agenda is essential to restore trust and confidence in corporate America and protect investors, employees and corporate officials who play by the rules, thereby improving our nation's economic growth today and for the future." Go Democrats!

Bob Borosage writes, "It is no accident that the current wave of costly corporate scandals followed the rise of modern conservatism to political power two decades ago. Ronald Reagan governed while denigrating government as 'the problem, not the solution.' He starved agencies of resources and placed committed ideological opponents in charge of them. Reagan's Commerce Department drew up a hit list of regulations resented by business ('the Terrible 20'). And of course Reagan signed the law that deregulated the savings and loans associations, while his appointee revoked requirements that any S&L have 400 shareholders. The resulting infamies cost taxpayers many billions. The conservative assault on government reached fever pitch when Newt Gingrich led the 'perfectionist' caucus of the Republican right to take over Congress. For Gingrich conservatives, government regulation was creeping Stalinism.'"

Robert Kuttner writes, "Bush's New York speech on corporate accountability was one of the weakest of his presidency. It was long on platitudes, short on structural reforms. The Dow Jones responded to his call for restored confidence in America's financial markets by plunging 189 points. Ever since he took office, Bush's short run political strategy has been to blur differences with Democrats... But America's corporate meltdown is real, and Bush is way behind the curve. It's more than a little ironic that Bush's mandateless presidency was rescued by a foreign policy crisis that is now being upstaged by what could be the most serious economic threat since the Great Depression. For Bush's own rise to fame and fortune in Texas was a small-bore version of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. There is no way that Bush can do a Nixon-to-China on this issue and get back ahead of the curve because Bush's closest cronies epitomize precisely the kind of capitalism that is imploding."

stirling s newberry writes, "If it had lasted 15 seconds, Bush's speech would have been a great speech. Filled with moral outrage about corporate wrong doing and demands that business schools teach ethics and 'right from wrong.' But the Wall Street types who listened to it applauded weakly, the stock market continued to tread water, and even the cable networks had only modest praise, even Fox had trouble putting lipstick on this pig. This speech failed, in other words, even by the standards of a corporate Republican agenda for fixing the problems with the markets and corporate accountability, and instead is another Potomac blizzard. Washington and Buffalo New York are the only two cities where most of the snow flies horizontally - but the difference is that in Washington it can happen during July."

Bush gave his long-awaited speech on corporate responsibility, but his performance was dismal. He couldn't stand straight, and leaned on his left elbow most of the time. He couldn't deliver cogent sentences without tripping repeatedly over the words. And the smirk was back - big-time! We counted at least 50 smirks, which revealed Bush's true feelings about his speech - that it was just a joke to keep the suckers in the market. Investors thought the speech was a joke too, as the markets dropped immediately after Bush finished. The Dow dropped 2%, NASDAQ fell 1.7%, and S&P lost 2.5%. Hey George - do everyone a favor and keep your stupid mouth shut!

Salon's Anthony York writes that both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill believe that reform of the accounting industry "may require the administration to replace Harvey Pitt. [Before being tapped by Bush to head the SEC] Pitt lobbied hard against a proposal by his predecessor, Arthur Levitt, to prohibit auditing firms from serving as consultants for their auditing clients. Now, Pitt has gone from an advocate for self-regulation in the accounting industry to the man in charge of the government agency that is supposed to regulate publicly traded businesses. But after a series of highly public corporate meltdowns in recent months -- many related to dubious bookkeeping practices -- critics say Pitts' ties to the industry appear to be so close that he cannot lead the reform effort needed to restore the trust of investors and the public... Auditor reform remains Pitt's blind spot, the result of his history as a lobbyist for the largest auditing firms."

Dana Milbank and Mike Allen write in the Washington Post: "A year ago, Bush's status as the first MBA president was an asset, and his administration full of corporate executives symbolized efficiency and good stewardship… But now that Wall Street and corporate America have been tarnished by a wave of accounting scandals, the Bush administration's corporate background and pro-business policies are a potential liability… 'It's a frustrating administration,' said Fred Smith, head of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute. 'I was more optimistic a year ago than I am now'… A top concern at the White House is Halliburton. The SEC is investigating possible irregularities in how the energy company began booking cost overruns on energy-related construction jobs when Cheney was chief executive." The article includes specific examples of Bush's support of business at the taxpayer's expense "in areas of energy, the environment, health care, labor and financial regulations, and taxes."

Let's make it simple: George W(hore) Bush is the biggest corporate shill in history. As a "businessman," he never earned an honest penny - he simply sold his father's influence to the highest bidder. As Governor, and then as Commander-in-Thief, he took as much money as he could from big corporations, and put those same corporations in charge of systematically de-regulating themselves. And Bush is a midget compared to the gargantuan frauds committed by Dick Cheney, of whom Bush said, "There are good actors and there are bad actors; he's one of the good guys." Excuse us while we puke. This article in the Washington Post touches on a few of Bush's mega-sellouts to his corporate paymasters - on the environment, energy, health care, labor, and business regulation. Bush will announce tough anti-fraud measures, including jail time for corporate thieves. But these words will be meaningless unless Bush and Cheney take themselves directly to jail, without passing Go.

The GOP is trying to blame the Clinton administration for the current corporate crashes - but this is one of the biggest lies it has yet tried to push off on the American public. Clinton's SEC head, Arthur Levitt tried CONTINUOUSLY to effect radical positive changes in accounting regulations but was blocked at every turn by the Republican dominated congress and the corporate lobbyists who poured vast sums of money into efforts to block any change. Harvey Pitt, Bush's choice for the SEC was instructed by Bush to go EASIER on big business...not only that, he has been accused of being so cozy with corporations that his conflicts of interest renders him all but useless.

"It's time for Democrats to declare that being tough on white collar crime is not being 'anti-business', it is time for Democrats to reaffirm our basic belief that only when there is, in FDR's words, 'a sensible system, sensibly trusted by sensible people' will there be real, sustainable economic growth. The Republicans will try and blame everyone but themselves and the criminals who use corporations as their weapon of choice for robbing the public. We haven't had sense in the financial markets, the financial press, the financial system and the financial culture for years now, and we have to get it back, or they will be talking about the Crash of '03 for generations to come. And it may be too late for that already..." So writes stirling s newberry.

Robert Scheer writes, "Has the war on terrorism become the modern equivalent of the Roman Circus, drawing the people's attention away from the failures of those who rule them? Corporate America is a shambles because deregulation [has become a license to steal. Is there any doubt that Enron executives and other CEOs have] done more long-term damage to the U.S. economy than the efforts of anti-American terrorists? [It's time to return to the wisdom of FDR, who saved capitalism from itself]. FDR had a healthy awareness of the tendency of the upper classes to destabilize society and even destroy themselves with their greed and hubris... Thus was born the idea of government regulation as the vital support structure for the powerful, fertile but unstable free market. [Unfortunately, since the] Reagan Revolution, powerful corporate interests have succeeded in profoundly damaging the foundation of a properly regulated economy."

Salon's Damien Cave writes, "Does anyone in the current administration even remember Enron? Judging by President [sic] Bush's two nominees to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), who appeared at Senate hearings on Tuesday, the answer is no. If there was one thing that could legitimately be hoped for after the biggest corporate bankruptcy of all time, it was that accounting rules would be tightened, and the rush to dismantle regulatory oversight over the kind of complicated financial games that Enron specialized in would be reversed. But instead, the people most responsible for loosening the rules are being put in charge... Bush's nominees boast what critics call a laughable regulatory record."

E J Dionne writes, "Just two years ago, the rise of Shareholder Nation was taken as a great boon to the long-term prospects of the Republican Party and conservative policies. [Grover Norquist argues that this] was why George W Bush was able to campaign for the partial privatization of Social Security... But then a funny thing happened on the way to Dow 36,000 (to borrow from the title of a popular book), and shrewd Republican strategists are nervous. When new expectations are created by rising stock values, it is no comfort to those whose portfolios are underwater to hear that they have suffered only 'paper losses'... David Winston, a Republican pollster, argues that losses of this sort are common across the investing middle class -- and they have political ramifications... In other words, Stockholder Nation may have created the first mass constituency for the sort of financial reforms that once were debated in back rooms and were easily derailed by lobbyists."

Nicholas von Hoffman writes, "Washingtonians have been diverted of late by a dumpy, bearded, middle-aged man running around on Pennsylvania Avenue wearing only white patent-leather, calf-length boots, a blue wig, a thong and [you don't want to know what else]. The man's name is Harvey Pitt, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but you must not conclude on the basis of his apparent numerous conflicts of interest and his ex parte meetings with the securities industry that he is a ho. [Harvey Pitt's SEC] is doing as little as it can to restore a degree of trustworthiness to the stock-and-bond business. The looting, the false books, the misleading information has, by most estimates, scared a significant number of investors, American and foreign, out of the market. If Wall Street is going to emulate Buenos Aires or Moscow, a certain number of investors are going to yank Harvey the ho's rings, snap his thong and hie themselves and their money elsewhere."

The Frontline documentary -- "Bigger Than Enron" -- exposes the ways the accounting industry, the CEO lobbyists, and their political allies gamed the system and stacked the deck against ordinary investors. The ENTIRE Wall Street establishment did its damn'dest to hamstring the Regulatory Agencies, and even persuaded Chris Dodd to lead the charge to override President Clinton's veto of the "No Accountablity for Accountants" bill -- all of which led to the current mess we're in. All of the big Five Accounting firms are implicated in the same shady deals that brought down Arthur Andersen. Many publicly traded corporations have engaged in some of the scams that brought down Enron. And now, George Bush has installed Harvey Pitt -- the # 1 lawyer that created this mess -- as Chairman of the SEC. Don't you feel better now?

Does anyone remember when “deregulation” meant using competition and free market forces to secure the best price and performance for consumers? In BushSpeak it seems to be defined as ceding the fruits of previous regulation to powerful established interests with the hope that some benefit may result.