Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LePaul on July 24, 2002, 10:31:44 AM
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,58606,00.html
Good!
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Must suck to be rich enough to commit large scale fraud like that, but NOT rich enough to buy the right politicians.
-Sikboy
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I am honestly surprised that most members of that family didn't flee the country back in May when they resigned. It was so obvious that the toejam was going to hit the fan. Maybe this was back when CEOs thought that they were above the law?
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Hmmm: I wonder who will be providing cable in my area after this..
Bonden
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I'm sure if Adelphia begins selling off branches, they'll be bought up fast. Comcast, Cox, etc are growing fast.
I dumped Adelphia in favor of Dish Network (satellite). More channels, less money and I can SPEAK to a representative in mere minutes. Cable Internet was fun, when it worked, but grossly overpriced compared to DSL. If I only had DSL in this part of town!
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Yes, an Adelphia repairman told me that Cox might be in the picture soon........
Bonden
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How greedy are these people?
Imagine scoffing an extra billion cause you need it.
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John Rigas also allegedly lent himself over $66 million of company funds without making required disclosures, spent $13 million to build a golf course on his property and paid for luxury apartments with the company’s money.
Wow. They managed to do all this since Bush became president?
AKDejaVu
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Sure, they have a completely honest and ethical president to follow as an example so ... :rolleyes:
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Do you think this will affect Rensselaer's credibility?:
http://scte.mgmt.rpi.edu/entrepreneurs/rigas.html
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Adelphia provides Cable services for my area and so far the only thing they have put in was Digital Cable no broadband and even some channels that we're supposed to be getting don't show properly hopeefully in the next buy out they will improve upon that or perhaps give some sort of broadband service,then again in the metro area in PR they pretty much have a monopoly so I guess it's wishful thinking.
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My question is: Did all this accounting fraud start before or after Jan 20th 2001?
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Cool, does this mean I don't have to pay my bill?
:D
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Originally posted by 10Bears
My question is: Did all this accounting fraud start before or after Jan 20th 2001?
Probably before, but the Republican Congress' sabotage of Clinton's SEC director's efforts to reform the accounting industry was also before Jan 20, 2001.
A funny and unrelated item is that the Rigas family refused to carry pr0n on Adelphia systems. They are moralizing hypocrits like Charles Keating.
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My question is: Did all this accounting fraud start before or after Jan 20th 2001?
Of course after, how could they ever do something like that under Democratic leadership?
It also states that Adelphia owned two condominium apartments in Manhattan. Prosecutors alleged that John Rigas' son-in-law had exclusive use of the apartments without paying rent from 1998 through May 2002.
(cnbc (http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/breaking/breakingnewsarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20020724&ID=1804848))
In less than four years the complaint alleges they stole hundreds of millions of dollars and through their fraud caused losses for investors of more than $60 billion.
(cnn (http://money.cnn.com/2002/07/24/news/rigas/index.htm))
According to an Adelphia Communications Corp. 10-Q filing, submitted on Sept. 30, 2000, the cable company appeared to provide $76.5 million to help purchase the team (Buffalo Sabres) from Niagara Frontier Hockey L.P.
(Business First (http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2002/05/27/story1.html))
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Originally posted by Montezuma
Probably before, but the Republican Congress' sabotage of Clinton's SEC director's efforts to reform the accounting industry was also before Jan 20, 2001.
A funny and unrelated item is that the Rigas family refused to carry pr0n on Adelphia systems. They are moralizing hypocrits like Charles Keating.
ROFLOL!!!!
Lets see how many SEC investigations where there in the past administration?
I think we can see who is trying to fix the problem and it's not congress or the democrats!
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http://www.hillnews.com/012302/audit.shtm
13 senators pressured SEC to abandon proposed audit rule
By Alexander Bolton
Thirteen senators pressured Arthur Levitt, then-chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to abandon a proposed rule that would have barred accounting firms from doing both auditing and consulting work for the same client, The Hill has learned.
Their actions take on new relevance in light of the collapse of the Enron Corporation. Critics contend that the company’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, was severely compromised by its simultaneous $27 million consulting contract with Enron.
Nearly every one of the lawmakers, except for Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), warned that the agency would lose funding if Levitt went ahead with his effort, according to former SEC officials with intimate knowledge of the events. Nearly all the senators benefited from campaign contributions from the accounting industry, which opposed the change.
Levitt’s proposal, put forth toward the end of the Clinton administration, elicited stern letters from 11 members of the Senate Banking Committee, who were joined by two other senators in lobbying against it.
Some of the attacks on the proposal were direct, but others phrased their opposition in terms of needing more time to study it.
Letters opposing the proposal were sent to Levitt by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Robert Bennett (R-Utah), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Gramm, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), former Sen. Rod Grams (R-Minn.), Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). Of that group, only Torricelli does not sit on the banking panel.
In addition, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), another Banking Committee member, voiced their opposition to the former chairman’s actions.
Spokespersons for Schumer, Bayh, Gramm, Torricelli, Allard, Enzi, Shelby and Hagel said their bosses never threatened the commission’s funding. Spokesmen for Allard and Bayh disputed that their bosses opposed the rule, asserting that they were merely raising prudent questions on legislation that would have had a significant impact on the accounting industry. The other senators failed to return telephoned requests for comment.
Torricelli’s spokeswoman said her boss’s letter did not express any opposition but only asked for a longer comment period.
Mike Bennett, Allard’s chief of staff, said his boss only asked for a delay in implementation to allow for hearings on the proposal. He added that such requests are commonplace and fall squarely within the oversight responsibilities of Congress.
Josh Kardon, Wyden’s chief of staff, said Levitt asked to meet with his boss and that his office did not have any record of sending a letter or official position to the SEC.
However, lawmakers often prefer to sidetrack laws and regulations through delays and other procedural strategies, rather than confront them head on.
Sources formerly with the SEC say Schumer, Bennett, Shelby, Gramm and Enzi led the opposition to Levitt’s proposal — opposition that eventually resorted to threats of funding freezes.
“It was very clear,” said one of Levitt’s former aides, “if someone needed a group of senators to support a rider [cutting SEC funding] they would have been supported.”
Lawmakers called up Levitt and asked why he was pushing for stricter conflict-of-interest regulations and let him know there was talk on Capitol Hill about attaching such a rider to an appropriations bill.
“We constantly heard from people from up on the Hill that there would be an attempt that accounting firms were trying to find someone to attach a rider onto the appropriations bill,” said another SEC source familiar with the lobbying effort. “At that point our funding bill had not been passed. The rider would have precluded the SEC from spending any money on the [so-called] auditor independence.”
To eliminate the conflicts of interest in the accounting industry, Levitt proposed that accounting firms, including Arthur Andersen, should not be allowed to provide both auditing services and consulting services to the same client.
“We want the auditor to be essentially a fair and objective umpire,” said Columbia Law Professor John Coffee, one of the country’s leading experts in securities and accounting law. “You can’t be both an umpire and salesman at the same time.”
Coffee said an auditor’s job is to restrain a chief financial officer of a company from adopting overly aggressive or unsound accounting practices, such as those that led to the collapse of Enron.
Last year, Arthur Andersen received $25 million from Enron for auditing services while raking in an additional $27 million for consulting services.
“[The auditor] is very promised in doing that if he is also trying to sell the CFO [chief financial officer] a $20 million software consulting contract,” he said.
Those lobbying against Levitt warned that Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Texas) planned to sponsor the rider that would have frozen the funds the commission needed to implement its rule.
In a letter dated Oct. 25, 2000, Levitt alerted Rep. John Dingell (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, to his concerns.
“I have heard from several sources that Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-Texas) intends to attach a rider to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriation bill that would delay the commission’s ability to adopt an auditor independence rule for six months,” Levitt wrote.
Dingell, Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) then warned the House Appropriations Committee that lawmakers might attempt to exert influence on SEC rulemaking through the appropriations process.
“Yesterday, we received a letter from SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt, warning us about an attempt to put a rider on the pending Labor-HHS appropriations conference report to interfere with the SEC’s ongoing rulemaking proceeding on auditor independence,” they wrote in a letter to Reps. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and David Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the appropriations panel.
Though no lawmaker took action to cut SEC funding, Levitt ultimately relented and the SEC adopted only a modest tightening of the conflict of interest rule, according to Coffee. Instead of requiring that accounting companies provide only one service per client, the SEC ruled that companies must merely disclose how much they receive in auditing and consulting fees from each client.
Barbara Roper, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, who supported Levitt’s original rule, said many considered Gramm, then the chairman of the banking panel, the lawmaker most likely to hamstring the SEC.
But a source familiar with the battle between the former SEC chairman and Congress said Levitt and Gramm had a good relationship. Gramm said he would not lead efforts to cut funding or otherwise hamper the agency but did not offer to help either.
“He said I can do my best but I can’t promise anything, if you go down that path you have to pay the consequences,” said the source, paraphrasing Gramm’s message.
Larry Neal, Gramm’s spokesman, said that his boss opposed Levitt’s original proposal because “he was concerned that it was too harsh. It could break up companies.” Neal insisted, however, that Gramm told Levitt that he would make every effort to make sure Congress did not interfere in the rule-making process.
Schumer, Bennett and Bayh sent Levitt two letters on the subject in 2000. In one dated July 28 of that year, the three senators, along with others on the Banking Committee, such as Gramm, Allard, Bunning and Santorum, expressed concern about the impact of the rule.
They also requested that its comment period be extended into February the following year, according to Roper, who summarized the letter in a memo to her boss, retired Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio). Metzenbaum now serves as chairman of the Consumer Federation of America.
Extending the comment period for the regulation would have likely defeated its implementation because Levitt had announced he would resign his post before the end of the comment period.
On July 21 of 2000, Torricelli also sent a letter to Levitt arguing that the SEC’s comment period was inadequate.
Deborah Deshong, spokeswomen for Torricelli, denied he had threatened to freeze funding and said that it would be “totally inappropriate” to do so.
Schumer has received $386,000 from the accounting industry since the beginning of 1995, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks campaign finance. In the last seven years, the industry has also given over $87,000 to Bennett, over $90,000 to Bayh, over $245,000 to Gramm, over $80,000 to Allard, over $71,000 to Bunning, over $90,000 to Santorum and over $121,000 to Torricelli.
Levitt’s rule also faced strong opposition in the House.
On the House side, Reps. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), then senior members of the House Commerce Committee, strongly opposed Levitt.
Tauzin sent three letters to Levitt in 2000 and Oxley sent two. They both complained that the SEC’s 75-day comment period was not sufficient for the conflict-of-interest rule.
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Pretty powerful post there. Does nothing to lift my opinion of our congress. It does however go a long way to moving me to the "I want more campain finance reform" group. Maybe it's time they make a law, no money from corporations or unions to any politician? I know that will never happen but I think that's what needs to happen. Pass another law or have the FCC say that each candidate gets x amount of free tv time. Then not let any politician buy adds, no government adds, nothing. Sorry to change the subject of the thread, but this is what has pissed me off the most out of that article.
We've always been told by the left and by hollywood and by the media that the Republicans are in bed with big business. Perhaps this will be the time when America realizes that both parties are in bed w/ big business. I dunno.
Gotta finish this forest fire before I go koo-koo for coco puffs!
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THe future is looking more and more like the game Deus Ex :eek:
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I brought my motorcycle to work
If it rains, and I get wet, is it the Bush Administrations fault?
I'm just curious how far we'll go to blame a President for what isnt his fault.
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Originally posted by LePaul
I brought my motorcycle to work
If it rains, and I get wet, is it the Bush Administrations fault?
I'm just curious how far we'll go to blame a President for what isnt his fault.
If it's Clinton, pretty dam far.
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Undie, your boys are opposed to campaign finance reform, they say it's a violation of their 1st ammendment rights.. The republican who is, John McCain didn't get trashed by the Bush team durring the election.
Reason I asked that question wasn't to point fingers, I read an article recently about WorldCom cooking the books for the last five quarters.. It's three months to a quarter isn't it?. Also interesting that Enron started raising energy rates in California 138% right after Bush was sworn in.
So, it's important to find out exactly when the foxes started eating the chickens. Was it back in '95 when the house overroad Clinton's veto? If so where was Author Levett for the six years from the time of the veto? Or did the super mass fraud start right about the time Bush was about to be selected president by the Surpreme court?
George W. Bush is shattering records for the worst first 18
months in office for a U.S. president as measured by the
benchmark Standard & Poor's 500. In his first year-and-a-half in the White House, Bush presided over a 36.9 percent decline, almost twice the percentage drop of Herbert Hoover, the president who led the nation into the Depression.
Hoover recorded an 18.6 percent decline and now ranks third from
the worst, with Richard Nixon in second place with a 23.6 percent
fall in his first 18 months. In other words, in the 75-year
existence of the S&P 500, no president has seen the stock market
index fall as much as one-quarter, before Bush's decline of more than one-third.
Ironically, given the Republicans' business-friendly reputation,
the four worst performing stock-market presidents in the first 18
months are all Republicans. Ronald Reagan's 15.3 percent decline
joins Hoover, Nixon and Bush at the bottom. The top two
performing presidents, as measured by the S&P in their first 18
months, are Democrats, Lyndon Johnson at a plus 27.5 percent and Franklin Roosevelt at 55.1 percent.
Bill Clinton ranked sixth with a 4.2 percent gain in his first 18
months.
While almost doubling Hoover's decline in the S&P, Bush trailed
the Depression-Era Republican slightly in the blue-chip Dow Jones
Industrial Average, which measures the performance of 30 top U.S. companies. In Hoover's first 18 months, the Dow fell 24.8
percent. In Bush's 18 months, the Dow's drop was 24.3 percent.
[NYT, July 22, 2002]
Though some presidents reversed the early returns of the stock
markets, Bush has so far failed to inspire confidence either with
his personal performance or his policies. The stock market has
greeted speech after speech by Bush with double-digit declines in
the Dow.
Accelerating Pace
The pace of the stock market crash under Bush also is
accelerating. In the 10 trading days since Bush visited Wall
Street to promote his economic plans, the Dow has dropped almost 1,500 points or 16
percent. [NYT, July 23, 2002]
The Bush speeches have done little to persuade investors that
happy days are here again - or for that matter, likely in the
foreseeable future. Bush's top economic proposals speak to
different conditions than are apparent today.
His demand for a permanent repeal of the inheritance or "death"
tax had more appeal to Americans who were watching their stock
portfolios swell in the Clinton Era, along with their inflated dreams of multi-million-dollar wealth to pass on to their descendants. Now, after a battering of their net worth, many of these Americans are simply hoping to have enough money to pay for a modest retirement.
Fast-track trade agreements also are out of sync with a world far
less enamored of U.S. economic leadership. Further, deregulation
of industry and tort reform -- backed by Bush and Republicans in
Congress -- have helped unleash some of the avarice that led to
corporate collapses at Enron Corp., WorldCom Inc. and other
companies.
Missing from Bush's economic plan is any initiative that can
inspire Wall Street with visions of economic expansion. By
contrast, the Clinton-Gore administration promoted technological advances like the Internet that created a framework for the private sector toinnovate. In Election 2000, Vice President Al Gore also proposed a partnership between government and industry to develop environmentally friendly vehicles and alternative energy sources, in part, to prime the pump for economic growth.
Major stock indexes are Wall Street's rough measures of expected
business growth. At least during George W. Bush's first 18
months, investors are judging that those expectations are lacking - on a historic scale.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/072202a.html