Bureaucracy
Over at Knoxviews, we learn:
President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.
Seems from the piece that Bush (though this has been around since Carter) is the first to delegate it down. Delegation is nothing knew, really, as many agencies (DEA, USDA, ATF, JD, etc.) have been delegated decision making authority. Honestly, it sucks knowing that important decisions are made by cronies instead of, say, elected officials doing their jobs. We’re be run by bureaus while politicians clamor for more special privilege.
In terms of financial and SEC disclosures, I wouldn’t worry much. The big accounting firms still sign off on those things and they won’t sign off without sufficient evidential matter even if the CEO has a note from mommy.
May 25th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Anderson signed off on Enron. Look where that ended up.
May 25th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Andersen was lied to. They went under due to losing their clients not due to lawsuits. IIRC, they were even held not liable.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
Yes. But Anderson still went under.
And their reports on Enron didn’t stop people, including Enron employees from investing in them.
Anderson got a raw deal. So did Enron’s employees.
The fact that their was “oversight” didn’t change a thing. That’s my point. The fact that one of the Big 8 (er 6, er 5, er 4, just how many are left anyhow?) accounting firms signs off is meaningless. Not to slam accountants per se, I know you are one, but please, spare us the “it’s ok if the annointed sign off on it.” They still have a vested interest to “sign off.” And that interest is suspect.
Thanks. Had to get that off my chest.
May 25th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
There’s 4. Rumor are it could be 3 soon. Yes, they have an interest in signing off but these guys are scared shitless and generally will not sign off unless it’s good. I know, I used to do that stuff. We’d basically say ‘these are the adjustments, make them or you get no opinion’. The issue is only when they are lied to or miss something (which is easy to do when companies have litterally millions of transactions).