President Bush, a former oil company CEO, the first president with an MBA and an unabashed advocate of big business, is considering new protections for stockholders and new penalties for unethical executives. But most Americans don't hold him accountable for the recent rash of corporate scandals.
Perhaps this is because the Bush network spins the facts, rewrites history, and lies about our appointed presidents past. Read Craig's Booknotes to see the truth.
Everyone Is Outraged
by Paul Krugman
Now to the story of Harken Energy, as reported in The Wall Street Journal on March 4. In 1989 Mr. Bush was on the board of directors and audit committee of Harken. He acquired that position, along with a lot of company stock, when Harken paid $2 million for Spectrum 7, a tiny, money-losing energy company with large debts of which Mr. Bush was C.E.O. Explaining what it was buying, Harken's founder said, "His name was George Bush." Unfortunately, Harken was also losing money hand over fist. But in 1989 the company managed to hide most of those losses with the profits it reported from selling a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, at a high price. Who bought Aloha? A group of Harken insiders, who got most of the money for the purchase by borrowing from Harken itself. Eventually the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled that this was a phony transaction, and forced the company to restate its 1989 earnings. But long before that ruling -- though only a few weeks before bad news that could not be concealed caused Harken's shares to tumble -- Mr. Bush sold off two-thirds of his stake, for $848,000. Just for the record, that's about four times bigger than the sale that has Martha Stewart in hot water. Oddly, though the law requires prompt disclosure of insider sales, he neglected to inform the S.E.C. about this transaction until 34 weeks had passed. An internal S.E.C. memorandum concluded that he had broken the law, but no charges were filed. This, everyone insists, had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president.
It's the same old swindlers story, if you didn't get caught, you didn't do anything wrong. Dub'ya ego say's what can I get away with. Question, find me an honest politician? Answer, I can't they're all dead.
 12:35:57 PM Google It! comment
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