Reply #82: I think you hit the nail on the head.. [View All]

[jfn302]

..with your comment about bookkeeping. But the problem is in the rules that corporations have to follow in order to provide records for the government. Congress, which has been controlled by Democrats for, what?, 6 years, sets the rules on how companies have to keep their books. If Democrats can fix everything, why hasn't this problem been fixed? Probably because the people in charge like Charlie Rangle are writing laws they don't understand and never intend to follow themselves.

The reason why it hasn't been fixed is because the current bookkeeping method shows companies to be more profitable, when in fact their real overhead is much higher. Since the companies are more profitable, the government gets more tax revenue. If capital expenditure was brought under regular expenses then companies would appear less profitable. Tax revenues would drop. Stock prices would be lower. But companies would actually be worth their 'true' price to earnings. Companies would not be able to find creative ways to shuffle costs into the 'capital' budget in order to push their stock price up.

As for the tendency to latch onto employee assets. I'd have to say that there is a 'creative' CFO working for the company that has his stock price in mind instead of his companies bottom line. It is un-ethical to put your company in jeopardy just to show growth and increase your own cash flow, regardless of your political leanings.

The problem in our country isn't Left or Right. It is Right or Wrong.

We need leaders that have unquestionable integrity. We can trust that they are going to do the right thing regardless what the issue is. We need to clean house of all the corrupt politicians on both sides of the isle. If they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar like Charlie Rangle, William Jefferson, Ted Stevens, Dianne Wilkerson, and others, they need to be removed from office and held accountable to the full extent of the law. They have been stealing money from all of us and using it for their own aggrandizement while we toil every day just to keep food on the table and lights in the house.

I don't fault anyone for working hard and getting rich. That is what the American Dream is all about. I don't hate Bill Gates for his billions of dollars. I hate the faults in Windows, but I don't hate him. I don't hate Sam Walton and his descendants for their riches from Wal-marts success. I hate that they switched to almost all China made products so a huge portion of our GDP is paid directly to a communist regime. But, the company works hard at being the discount store you want to go to. They do a very good job and are very successful because of it.

I fault people for doing the wrong thing. Enron, MCI, Merrile Lynch, World-Com, Arthur Anderson. These companies are the tip of the iceberg. But, it's not the companies themselves that are the culprits. It is the people within the company that make the decision to do the wrong thing. The company is not evil. The person or persons making the unethical decision is or are. Let's hold those individuals accountable for their actions, rather than trying to destroy industries for their success.