William Raspberry / Syndicated columnist
Hey — profits happen



WASHINGTON — Oil profits "go up and down," Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond told the Senate the other day, explaining why the oil giants' huge post-Katrina profits were not profiteering.

Thus the $32.8 billion profits that America's five biggest petroleum corporations reported for the July-September quarter were more like a natural occurrence — that darned "invisible hand"! — than a calculated effort to take advantage of a national emergency. Profits just "go up and down."

But even the facile Raymond couldn't explain why record profits and record gasoline prices just happened to occur at the same time. You know the sequence: Hurricane Katrina ravages the Gulf Coast, and a week later two other things hit: Gasoline prices reach an all-time-high average of $3.06 a gallon and Exxon Mobil became the first U.S company to rack up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales. (It wasn't all Exxon, of course. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips also did very well.)

Here's how Raymond explains it (and I pick on Raymond only because he says things so clearly): Katrina damaged important refineries, reducing their capacity. That naturally made it more expensive to meet demand, and so they had to raise prices. Chevron chairman David O'Reilly put it more simply: "We had to respond to the market."

But if prices were raised to cover additional costs, whence the record profits?

Well, Raymond had a secondary explanation: Three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline reduced demand and helped to regulate the market. That's why you didn't see those long lines at gas stations. Reducing consumption also reduces reliance on oil imports, and, though he didn't say it, probably reduces hydrocarbon emissions and slows global warming — all good stuff.

In other words, what you thought was profiteering was only Big Oil doing the world a favor.

There is another way of looking at what happened last quarter. Katrina and the flooding that followed amounted to a national tragedy and a national emergency. Companies sometimes benefit from such situations. A bakery that somehow managed to stay open would certainly sell out of bread; and if the owner could bake more bread, he could sell that, too. If the ingredients became more expensive, he would take that into account in setting the price of bread. But if he started charging $8 a loaf just because he could, you wouldn't be in the mood for cheery songs about the beauty of the free market.

There is also another way to respond to national disaster, and lots of individuals, organizations — even entire towns — found it. I mean the response of sacrifice. Americans opened their hearts, their wallets and their homes to Katrina's victims. Where is the record of Big Oil's selfless largesse? As Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told the oil executives: "Your sacrifice appears to be nothing."

Maybe the notion of corporate sacrifice — the very idea of the corporate citizen — is dying, giving way to the bottom line as the only thing worthy of serious attention.

The only thing in Raymond's testimony that sounded even remotely like sacrifice was his reference to reinvested profits. But the profits are reinvested into more exploration and more refining — which is to say, more sales and more profits for the stockholders.

Meanwhile, the executives were full of dire warnings against legislating anything smacking of price controls, mandatory givebacks or excess-profits taxes. They probably shouldn't worry. There doesn't appear to be much taste for real action in the Senate, and given the Jimmy Carter experiment with taxing excess profits, few want to try that road now.

It's a lot easier to believe the American people have been ripped off than to figure out how to make them whole now.

I just wish the Big Oilers would stop trying to convince me that the noxious liquid splashing in my face is autumn rain. Listen once again to Raymond:

"Prices for products did increase, of course, but there was no panic and no widespread shortages. Retailers responded to the short-term supply disruption, consumption decreased and imports increased to make up for the shortfall. In a word, markets worked."

For a few of us, anyway.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opin...aspberry15.html

US senators demand oil execs re-testify, under oath

Nov 16 6:44 PM US/Eastern

Senate Democrats demanded that oil company executives who testified last week about skyrocketing energy prices reappear before lawmakers and testify under oath, after news reports raised questions about the truthfulness of their testimony.

Leading oil company executives long have denied taking part in a secretive energy task force run in 2001 by Vice President Dick Cheney, but White House records obtained by The Washington Post refuted that, according to the daily's editions on Wednesday.

The ad hoc group was tasked with helping develop a national energy policy, but was opposed by environmentalists because there allegedly were no ecologically friendly players on the panel.

The leader of Senate Democrats said the oil company executives who testified last week should be forced to return to Congress to set the record straight regarding their involvement with Cheney's group.

"When the big oil companies came to Congress to testify about their record profits, we expected that they would tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Today, we learned that this was a standard they were not prepared to meet," said Senator Harry Reid.

"This is unacceptable. I join my Democratic colleagues in demanding that these oil executives by brought back to the Congress, sworn in, and forced to testify again about their involvement with Vice President Cheneys secretive energy task force and all of the issues covered in the hearing," said Reid, who authored a letter to the Senate leadership requesting that the oil executives be summoned to new hearings.

"We respectfully request that you reconvene hearings as soon as possible to take these witnesses sworn testimony about their roles in the Cheney energy task force and the recent run-up in American fuel prices," Reid wrote in the letter.

Democrats also objected to a decision by the leaders of the Republican-led Senate to waive swearing in the witnesses. At any future hearing, Reid said, the executives should testify under oath.

"Recalling these witnesses to testify under oath will help us answer many of these lingering questions, and bolster the American peoples confidence in the integrity of the Senates investigation into this matter," he said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg called at a press conference for an investigation.

"I want to be certain that this gets an appropriate review, so I've written to the attorney general asking him to investigate whether any of these oil company CEOs broke the law by making false statements to the Congress," Lautenberg said.

"Gas prices, everyone knows, are more than double what were at the end of 2001, and in September we all saw the average price of gas go above three dollars," he said.

"Whatever was discussed at that White House energy task force meeting, it seems to turn out very well for the big oil companies, but it's been disastrous, daily disastrous for the American public."

Lautenberg added: "We need to know what went on at those meetings, and find out whether this administration permitted the interests of big oil to stand ahead of the needs of the American families, small businesses."


http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/16/0...1.m8napdyv.html

If they are so innocent, and so forward looking, why was their input hidden from the public during Cheney's energy policy talks.

When you think about it, the secrecy itself is weird. Why shouldn't Cheney talk to Oil Company executives when forming National Energy Policy? The fact that they went to extraordinary lengths to hide that fact was what was suspicious in the first place.

Why should they lie about it now if everything was so aboveboard and "innocent?" The obvious answer is because things weren't innocent and aboveboard.

Cheney is an oil man first and foremost. Perhaps he isn't the one that should be forming a National Energy policy to begin with. The conflicts of interest are just too overwhelming to be dismissed.

ya think?

Yeah. I think that's likely what most folks are thinking, too. File that under "painfully obvious irony and vice."



Cheney has the Country in a 'vice'-like grip over his ironic oil-profit enhancing energy policy.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Federal immigration agents detained more than 100 workers at a construction site for a new Wal-Mart distribution center, authorities said.


The workers, who Wal-Mart said were employed by a subcontractor and not by the retailing giant, were detained Thursday on suspected immigration violations, said Department of
Homeland Security spokesman Marc Raimondi. They were being taken to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers for processing, he said.

More than 50 federal immigration agents, joined by the U.S. Labor Department,
Social Security Administration and state police, raided the construction site near Pottsville, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Wal-Mart spokesman Marty Heires said the company would cooperate fully with federal authorities.

"We have written contracts with these subcontractors requiring that they follow all applicable local, state and federal employment laws," he said in a statement.

At least 120 illegal immigrants, most of them from Mexico, were detained, Schuylkill County Sheriff Frank McAndrew said. He said he began investigating the site and contacted federal officials after getting complaints from local tradespeople.

"You've got a situation here where illegal immigrants are coming into Schuylkill County and taking (local union workers') jobs for eight bucks an hour. They are working for poverty wages, and creating unemployment because our skilled tradesmen are out of work," McAndrew said.

In 2003, a raid of 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states led to the arrests of 245 illegal workers. An affidavit claimed a pair of senior Wal-Mart executives knew cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants. The retailer agreed to pay $11 million in March to settle the case but denied senior executives knew of the hirings.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051118/ap_on_...illegal_workers

Look at this crap. East Peoria bribes Walmart to build there with a 5 year excemption on taxes. Walmart has communities stabbing each other in the backs to get their store. East Peoria gave them the best sweetheart deal with roads and infrastructure in an area with little. They finally reach the point where the excemption is up and Walmart wants more. What do you bet they close up shop if they don't get what they want? THIS is only one of the reasons I don't shop at Walmart.


Wal-Mart tax break request outrageous


Saturday, November 19, 2005

No sooner had East Peoria's Wal-Mart begun paying property taxes after five years of a free ride than it began appealing its taxable value.

It's at it again, seeking a 33 percent total reduction - including a drop of nearly two-thirds in the value of the building itself, far lower than any comparable facility in the area - on top of the negotiated 17 percent gift it got last year. No doubt many an East Peoria property owner would like that kind of break. The audacity of the world's largest company is breathtaking.

Fortunately, East Peoria officials are fighting Wal-Mart - for a change - to hold on to the $304,000-plus in property tax revenue they and the city's two largest school districts now get from the retailer. Wal-Mart has taken its case to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board after striking out with the Tazewell County Board of Review. The taxing bodies should hold firm.

Indeed, it's bad enough that a company with $288 billion in revenue and $10.3 billion in profit last year got tax incentives in the first place (and we won't even count the millions in infrastructure the city provided, to Wal-Mart's benefit). It's bad enough that the store has been a wart on East Peoria's waterfront, its trash piling up at times with not much more than a shrug from management. That's the problem with corporate welfare; the recipients get used to it, then get lazy.

It's bad enough that the heirs of company founder Sam Walton are worth an estimated $90 billion - more than the world's two richest men (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) combined, according to the business magazines, equal to the gross domestic product of Singapore - and yet still have the guts to ask taxpayers for even more forgiveness. Call it an entitlement mentality.

It's bad enough that Wal-Mart touts itself as a company that takes its social responsibilities seriously, then tries to stiff East Peoria schoolchildren while simultaneously contemplating a campaign to "dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart." Do its leaders wonder why the nation's largest cities - New York, Chicago, Los Angeles - want little or nothing to do with them? Do they wonder why there's an unflattering documentary out in theaters now called "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"?

Oh, the property tax is a lousy one as taxes go, and Wal-Mart's burden is substantial. Problem is, a company that pulls stunts like this one forfeits any sympathy. Not even the most expensive PR effort will change that. Is Wal-Mart not profitable in East Peoria, as it seems to be everywhere else?

Wal-Mart is just displaying its true colors. East Peoria - like a lot of other sales-tax-desperate communities - sold its soul and then some. No one should be surprised when the devil comes to collect. Beware the yellow happy face.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/111905/EDI_B8599QC2.058.shtml

Talk about delusional



What planet does snowjob live on?

Illegal Workers at Wal-Mart Site Deported



By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer

November 19, 2005, 4:04 AM EST

SCRANTON, Pa. -- Federal officials say the arrest of 125 workers at a construction site for a new Wal-Mart distribution center should serve as a warning to employers who hire illegal immigrants.

All 125 workers arrested in the raid will be deported, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials said Friday. The workers from Mexico and Central America were detained Thursday at the site outside Pottsville, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.



"Employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens, and those who utilize false documents to gain employment, face significant criminal and administrative charges," said John Kelleghan, acting special agent-in-charge for the immigration agency in Pennsylvania.

Some of the 125 workers, who are from Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, used fake documents to obtain employment with subcontractors, officials said. The arrests came after search warrants were executed for six companies at the site.

The Pennsylvania job site remains shut down, Wal-Mart spokesman Marty Heires said Friday. He did not know when construction would resume.

Agents obtained the search warrants after learning that 10 workers employed by Destin Drywall & Paint were using Social Security numbers that did not match their names.

Another three used Social Security numbers that were never issued by the government, according to an affidavit unsealed Friday at U.S. District Court in Scranton.

Houston-based Destin has worked on Wal-Mart projects around the country, said office manager Cindy Wyman. She said the company verifies that employees are permitted to work in the United States.

"As far as I know, their Social Security numbers are good," Wyman said of the Pennsylvania workers.

A Wal-Mart spokesman has said the detained workers were not employed by Wal-Mart but by the subcontractors. Wal-Mart's contracts with the companies require that they follow local, state and federal employment laws, the company said.

Last month, Wal-Mart shut down work on seven stores under construction in North Dakota to check for illegal aliens after two illegal immigrants working on Wal-Mart projects in Bismarck were charged with molesting two 13-year-old girls. Charges against one of the suspects were dropped after authorities found out he was a juvenile.

In 2003, a raid of 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states led to the arrests of 245 illegal workers. An affidavit claimed a pair of senior Wal-Mart executives knew cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants. The retailer agreed to pay $11 million in March to settle the case but denied senior executives knew of the hirings.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines

General Motors to Cut 30,000 Manufacturing Jobs, Close Plants
Associated Press

DETROIT — General Motors Corp. will eliminate 30,000 manufacturing jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain plants by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand and return the company to profitability and long-term growth.

The announcement Monday by Rick Wagoner, chairman and CEO of the world's largest automaker, represents 5,000 more job cuts than the 25,000 that the automaker had previously indicated it planned to cut.



GM said the assembly plants that will close are in Oklahoma City, Lansing, Mich., Spring Hill, Tenn., Doraville, Ga., and Ontario, Canada. A shift also will be removed at a plant in Moraine, Ohio.

An engine facility in Flint, Mich., will close, along with a separate powertrain facility in Ontario and metal centers in Lansing and Pittsburgh.

Wagoner said GM also will close three service and parts operations facilities. They are in Ypsilanti, Mich., and Portland, Ore. One other site will to be announced later.

"The decisions we are announcing today were very difficult to reach because of their impact on our employees and the communities where we live and work," Wagoner told employees. "But these actions are necessary for GM to get its costs in line with our major global competitors. In short, they are an essential part of our plan to return our North American operations to profitability as soon as possible."

GM said the plan is to achieve $7 billion in cost reductions on a running rate basis by the end of 2006 -- $1 billion above its previously indicated target.

The company said it would take a "significant" restructuring charge in conjunction with the changes and any related early retirement program. Details of those charges would be released later, GM said.

Any early retirement program would require an agreement with its unions, which GM said it hopes to reach soon.

GM shares rose 18 cents to $24.23 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares traded below $21 last week at an 18-year low.

Wagoner said last month the automaker would announce plant closures by the end of this year to get its capacity in line with U.S. demand. GM plants currently run at 85 percent of their capacity, lower than North American plants run by its Asian rivals. The plant closings aren't expected to be final until GM's current contract with the United Auto Workers expires in 2007.

GM has been crippled by high labor, pension, health care and materials costs as well as by sagging demand for sport utility vehicles, its longtime cash cows, and by bloated plant capacity. Its market share has been eroded by competition from Asian automakers led by Toyota Motor Corp. GM lost nearly $4 billion in the first nine months of this year.

The automaker could be facing a strike at Delphi Corp., its biggest parts supplier, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month. GM spun off Delphi in 1999 and could be liable for billions in pension costs for Delphi retirees.

GM also is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting errors.

Last week, after the automaker's shares fell to their lowest level in 18 years, Wagoner sent an e-mail to employees saying the company has a turnaround strategy in place and has no plans to file for bankruptcy.

GM is not the only U.S. automaker faced with the need to cut costs.

Last week, Ford Motor Co. told employees it plans to eliminate about 4,000 white-collar jobs in North America early next year as part of a restructuring plan. Ford said the cuts will be made in part through attrition and elimination of some agency and contract positions.

The plans were outlined Friday in an e-mail to employees from Mark Fields, president for the Americas.

The cuts will be in addition to 2,750 North American salaried jobs that Ford earlier said it wanted to cut by the end of 2005. Ford started the year with about 35,000 salaried workers in North America.

Dearborn-based Ford reported a third-quarter loss of $284 million, including a loss of $1.2 billion before taxes in North America.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-112105g...-home-headlines


It's a race to the bottom. The American dream has turned into a nightmare. It's good to known the corporate whores have set their wealthy campaign contributors up so they can weather the storm. The rest of the country can go to hell. What middle class?

Yeah, I'm sure GM wants to get smaller so they're racing downhill.

It's always a race downhill for spending and a race uphill for earnings. The wage market is a bitch.

The phrasing of the above is a classic case of propaganda.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2...tent_436543.htm

I hear that these automakers plan on selling those 'exports' in the North American market at 1/10 of the price (Even though their average labor costs are about 1/14 of their average U.S./North American labor costs, I thought I'd give them some leeway for additional transportation costs and whatnot). Well, maybe they'll just cut retail prices by 1/2. Sure they will.

damn.


Remember when the US retooled it's manufacturing plants for WW2?

Who's reaping the huge cost differential savings, I wonder? It must be the U.S. auto buyer, right? Or maybe it's those lazy union bastards in the U.S. who still have jobs, right?

OTOH:



http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2...tent_436543.htm

Soooounds logiiiical taaaa me. Of course I can't remeber the last 40 years or so.

Not exactly.

Noo? Gosh, darn it. Who then?

Must be those "lefties"

I'll leave the next one for 'homework':



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/...4_06/004134.php

http://www.investorwords.com/986/common_stock.html

http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/createcapital.shtml

http://www.raymondaugust.com/courses/law2/...law2notes04.htm

They've changed the meaning of the word "participation". They should have put these jerks under oath.


Big Oil 'Participation' at Issue
Definitions Cited in Dispute Over Roles in Energy Task Force

By Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A17

It all depends how you define the word "participate."

While that may seem as silly as bickering over the definition of the word "is," the implications for some oil company executives who testified at a Senate hearing could be significant. Based on how the word is parsed, some executives either told the truth or did not when they were asked about their "participation" in the 2001 energy task force headed by Vice President Cheney.




The dispute stems from a question raised by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). At a hearing two weeks ago, he asked five oil executives whether they or representatives of their companies participated in meetings with Cheney's energy task force.

The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Chevron Corp. answered no. The president of Shell Oil Co. said his company did not participate "to my knowledge," and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.

The Bush administration has refused to identify who participated in the task force meetings. But The Washington Post reported last week that a White House document shows that in 2001, officials from Exxon Mobil, Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil and BP America met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

Yesterday, Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for the GOP staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of the two panels that convened the hearing, said its lawyers had reached a preliminary conclusion: Based on a court decision in which two groups unsuccessfully challenged the secrecy of the Cheney task force, Funk said the executives appeared to be telling the truth.

"What we simply determined was that the definition of 'participation' was something litigated, and what the court concluded was that attending meetings, and even making presentations, did not rise to the level of fully participating," Funk said.

Lautenberg sees it differently, and disputes the GOP interpretation of the court decision. He also said Republicans are incorrectly interpreting his question.

"I think we're getting down to almost a silly discussion," Lautenberg said.

Lautenberg said that when he asked the question, he was thinking of the word "participation" in broad terms. Here's his definition: "If you're doing anything more than breathing in the room when you're there. Even if you're a silent observer."

The senator has asked the Justice Department to look into the matter.

Funk said that the GOP staff's findings have given "considerable comfort" to Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), the chairman of the energy panel. Funk said Domenici is reserving final judgment until after he has reviewed the written clarification that he and the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), have asked the oil companies to submit.

Yesterday, Exxon released a response to the senators, reiterating its position that its chief executive, Lee R. Raymond, testified accurately. The statement said the company had not "been a participant on the Task Force and no representative of ExxonMobil attended any meeting of the Task Force."

The statement went on to say that on Feb. 14, 2001, a 45-minute meeting took place with "an administration official" at Exxon Mobil's request. The company "provided information on the global energy supply and demand situation and steps ExxonMobil was taking to meet the world's growing energy needs."

Chevron recently submitted a statement saying that its employees had not participated in meetings with the task force. But the company said it sent a letter to President Bush outlining its position on energy policies.

ConocoPhillips has said its chief executive was appointed when Conoco and Phillips merged in 2002 and was unaware that Conoco officials had met with task force staff.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5112201655.html

Nov. 23, 2005, 6:14AM
LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Government won't retry Andersen criminal case
Court likely to dismiss charges against firm; employee who pleaded guilty could go free

By JOHN C. ROPER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

GOVERNMENT prosecutors have closed the books on Arthur Andersen and decided not to retry the criminal case, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in May.

The move, detailed in an appellate court filing on Tuesday, essentially paves the way for the U.S. District Court here to entirely dismiss the charges with prejudice, meaning that what's left of the firm can no longer face criminal charges in the case that was tied to the Enron debacle.

It also allowed David Duncan, the only Andersen employee to plead guilty to a crime in the case and the prosecution's star witness, to most likely walk away without prison time.

"When weighing to question whether to retry this case, the question arises: Why would you charge a company that's already defunct?" a Justice Department official said on condition of anonymity. "That and the Supreme Court decision and some other factors weighed very heavily against retrying this case."

The Supreme Court found that U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon's 2002 jury instructions were so vague that jurors could have convicted the company of obstruction of justice for innocently destroying documents related to the Enron investigation.

The high court ruled unanimously that the trial judge erred when she told jurors they could convict Enron's accountants even if people at the company didn't know what they did was illegal.

After Andersen was found guilty, Harmon sentenced the firm to a maximum sentence of a $500,000 fine and five years' probation, essentially handing the company a death sentence. Some 28,000 Andersen employees were left without jobs. The Chicago-based firm employs about 200 workers whose role is largely to fend off civil suits.

Attorney Rusty Hardin, who represented Andersen in the 2002 trial, said the government's withdrawal signaled "vindication for those thousands and thousands of employees whose organization was destroyed and who went on with the rest of their lives adamantly believing that the company they had given their careers to did not commit a crime."

Former Andersen employee Brandon Lamb, 30, was happy to see the case finally closed but overall found the news to be of little solace.

"The entire organization was prosecuted for the wrongdoing of a few, and I don't think that's fair," he said, adding he thinks the prosecution overstepped its bounds. "I'm just glad it's behind us. I don't think dredging it up again is going do it any good. What else can they take? They already took the whole firm," said Lamb, who is studying law at the University of Houston.

Hardin said a dismissal of the criminal charges, which Harmon must still rule on, will also help with the dozens of civil cases Andersen still faces.

"Because all along, at every turn in the civil depositions, Andersen people have been asked, 'Well, isn't it true that your company was convicted of so and so crime?' " Hardin said. "They aren't going to be able to say that anymore."

The Justice Department would not comment directly on its decision to drop its fight against Andersen, but after the Supreme Court decision it steadily maintained that it had a good case against the firm.

Attorneys for Duncan, the top Enron auditor at Arthur Andersen, jumped at the opportunity to file a motion with Harmon on Tuesday, asking that he be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.

In the motion, they note that in his plea he did not say he knew he acted illegally when telling employees to comply with the policy, only that he knew telling them to follow the policy would mean destroying documents and making them unavailable to the Securities and Exchange Commission and others.

The Enron Task Force will not oppose Duncan's motion because it does not believe it has the "legal basis" to do so, Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said.

Duncan pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice for telling Andersen staffers working on the Enron account to "comply with the Andersen document policy," which was to destroy all drafts, memos and other work papers as soon as a project was complete. Thousands of Enron documents were shredded by Andersen employees prior to investigators seizing them in late 2001.

Duncan was the government's star witness in the Andersen trial in early 2002, but his lack of emotion on the stand led many observers to question whether he believed he was guilty. He repeatedly answered questions using the same phrase, that he "knew the documents that I destroyed would not be available for others to review."

"We couldn't have paid David Duncan to be this good a witness," Hardin said during the trial. "I believe his testimony shows he did nothing to keep information from investigators."

Andersen released a statement late Tuesday saying it was "very pleased with the decision" that "represents an important step in removing an unjustified cloud over the professionalism and integrity of the people of Arthur Andersen."

While the Andersen chapter is closed for the Enron Task Force, the question observers are asking is how the government's legal team will fare in January in the trial of former Enron executives Rick Causey, Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay.

Houston trial lawyer David Berg didn't believe the failure of the government to get the prosecution of Andersen to stick will have much effect, if any.

Berg said it weakens the prosecutors' image as slayers of corporate wrongdoing, "but in the public's view, I think the public is looking for individual accountability in the form of Causey, Skilling and Lay."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3479506.html

Interesting. So this guy is saying Bush's financial policies aren't helping the rich either?

Hmmm.

Maybe the horrid economic policies really are aimed at collapsing the Federal gubmint.

It amazes me an economist can discuss taxes independently from spending. A deficit is a function of both taxes and spending.

Bridges to nowhere don't help. And that project itself may have been scuttled but they just gave Alaska a blank check for the same amount. So what's the difference?

Actually the difference in that case is they will use the money to get the most bang for the buck, rather than using it for the stupidest project. Though I'd have been for cutting at least half, the manner the money is spent does matter.

AZ had principled representation, and because of it we got completely screwed in the battle for pork. But I've been against sending more money to Washington for decades. Nice to see some new allies.

You know they can still use the money for the bridges. We'll see. I bet they proceed with them anyway. Someone stood to make a lot of money on realestate. I bet they contrubute large amounts to Stevens.

Wait and see.

I bet they don't. Development benefits fewer people/voters now than projects in developed areas. Alaska has it's own money if they want to spend it there. Too bad the Fed controls so much of Alaska or they'd probably be rich enough to build whatever they want from oil revenue.

We'll see.

Well, that would be 'over-kill' in this context. Obviously, the "lower tax-rates increase the 'pie' out of which taxes can be collected, and the end result may be either revenue-neutral or revenue-positive" approach does not always work, or does not work 'enough' in conjunction with profligate (which implies not just high quantities of spending, but spending that has a very weak impact on future revenues) spending.

Right. Too many variables. But the author is totally ignoring half the major variables in the most basic of equations.

I was surprised that none of our supply-siders or those who advocate for lower taxes on capital gains/upper incomes picked up on Noma's posts about how investments in stocks don't actually go to the company involved to be invested in the job-producing business, but rather to speculators.

There's somebody that didn't already know that? Well, speculators and investors.

Without speculators and investors to buy the shares from the first puchaser (the IPO shares buyer), there wouldn't be too many people willing to be that first buyer, would there?

With a devalued stock price, a company might also have borrowing problems as well.

FJ, if you can read through the B/S, is master of the obvious most of the time anyhow. Waking up to a whole new world every day must be interesting.

It remains that tax cuts aimed at the so-called "investor class" based on an assertion that those investments will go to capital projects that create new jobs is false. The sensible thing to do would be to target the tax cuts at new direct investments. Much more bang for the buck.

That WAS how much of Reagan's cuts were targeted--at businesses, with huge deductions for businesses making bricks-and-mortar (or employee) expansions of their businesses, and a while (was it two years?) of special tax treatment for NEW stock issues.

I think in general that's a fair statement. Personally, I liked the ITC (Investment tax credit) best. If a company was profitable, and owed taxes, it could reduce its taxes owed by 25% of the amount it spent on new equipment.

Since new equipment can be financed at 70-90% of its acquisition costs, the 25% tax credit provided all the new equity that the company needed to buy the new machinery.

Most growing companies paid little or no tax under that system.

If you can take a basic fact and make it into a long post and add a little bit of jargon for effect it's so much more entertaining.

When you dig through the crap and find the gem (if it ain't cubic zirconia) you feel like you won the lottery. Too bad us quasi-literate rubes is so bad at finding the gems.

But it's fun diggin' in the shit.

The bottom line is that corporations, for the most part, including, but not limited to, cities and towns, are fucking eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

Wasn't there also a provision that companies that weren't profitable but made such investments anyway (presumably with the goal of becoming profitable) could carry forward those deductions for 3-10 years, depending on the nature of (and depreciation period of) those investments? With the social goal in mind of encouraging those businesses to make delayed investments, thereby both improving the national jobs picture and improving their own long-term bottom lines?

(And while I'm on the subject, we REALLY need to go back to the holding period for capital gains being 2 years, not 6 months. Six months flies in the face of the logic for extending a capital gains tax break in the first place--encouraging investment in projects that won't bear fruit for quite a while. Six months seems to be encouraging churning and speculation and cherry-picking, not real "investment" for the laudable purpose of attaining longer-term gains proportionate to risk.)

Well, therefore, the stock market is primarily a market for stocks, as such, not a 'capital market'. That's why I posted all those pieces detailing what owneship of common stock etc. actually entails in terms of property rights. Ownership of stock is not equivalent to owning 1/nth (where n=the numbers of stocks outstanding) of the actual company/corporation.