Monday, June 10, 2002

Unrelenting CEO greed has become almost numbing "The unrelenting gluttony has become almost numbing. CEO greed, combined with all of the other legal and illegal corruptions of public markets, is one of the many reasons for a growing popular disenchantment with investing. When people figure the market is rigged, the entire economy suffers in the long run." "There's another effect. America's continuing, disproportionate accumulation of wealth at the very top, while others lag far behind, is a corrosive influence in a society that claims equal opportunity." 1:35:01 PM  Google It!  comment  []

The End Is Nigh "After reading Wolff's article I really started to think about all the stuff that's going on these days. The one phrase I keep repeating is: It's all gonna come crashing down. I'm normally a glass-is-half-full kinda guy, but everywhere I look the walls are swaying. Perhaps that's because so many of them are really just set decorations and not the real thing." "I think the real estate market is gonna come crashing down. I think the music industry is gonna come crashing down. I think the professional sports television contracts boondoggle is gonna come crashing down. I think the airline industry and telecom are gonna come crashing down. I think higher-education is gonna come crashing down. I think network news is gonna come crashing down. Today's way of doing business is not sustainable. The Cult of Free has something to do with it, but the companies themselves have been willing accomplices." "Now just to prove that I'm a cynical optimist I believe that banking, healthcare, adaptive technology, privacy/ security, and biotech are on their way to the top. I have my reasons, but I'll leave that for another blog." 1:31:14 PM  Google It!  comment  []

The value of trust Investors seem to have lost faith in Wall Street. What can be done about it? "Investors have not only lost patience with corporate America's greed and its inability to do what it says it is doing; they have also lost confidence in Wall Street's ability to act as an honest broker between them, the providers of capital, and the corporate users of it. 'There is an air of cynicism surrounding every institution that underpins our capital markets,' says Stanley O'Neal, co-head of Merrill Lynch, an investment bank that recently paid $100m to settle a lawsuit over the integrity of its analysts when the Internet hype was at its peak. 'This cynicism has gone beyond reasonable questioning, and could easily turn destructive.'" 8:11:24 AM  Google It!  comment  []