BACKLASH 101 -- In light of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, victim families feel that the $1.6 million federal settlement fund is insufficient. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on January 25, 2002 that average Americans feel that people are getting greedy. The massive amounts of charitable donations was supposed to be sent to help the victims in their time of need. But the public did not authorize additional compensation via tax dollars. And there is a different standard; for Oklahoma City bombing did not lead to federal taxpayer assistance for that terrorist act.

 

BACKLASH 102 -- In light of the Enron scandal, politicans have gotten on their soapboxes in Congress to investigate how this huge collapse harmed America. The employees are shouting loudly that the officers and directors made millions on the stock withholding information while their retirement funds free falled to near zero. The employees are looking for compensation for their savings wipe-out. There is talk of government assistance because the watchdogs were asleep at the chicken coop. Is this another greedy safety net? The majority of congressmen have taken money from Enron and Andersen over the years. The employees company savings plans was a voluntary situation. If there is wrongdoing by officers or directors, there are private means of compensation. Congress cannot grandstand for new legislation to look good, because you cannot legislate against liars and fraud. Besides, its already on the books. One has to enforce it.

 

BACKLASH 103-- In light of the Andersen scandal, accountants slash consultants are being put under the spotlight. No, its more like the broiler. Auditors are number crunches and fact checkers. Consultants are cover for management decisions gone haywire. In the business of the blame game, consultants are highly paid. The shifting of assets to conflict of interest partnerships, trusts and creative accounting is merely another version of the boardwalk three card monty, except this time it was with billions of dollars in paper securities at issue. Maybe it is the business school dream to run a billion dollar financial corporation, one that makes money shuffling paper and investment, instead of the old school boring business model of managing factories and selling products for a profit. The glamour of getting one's fingers dirty creating something that is tangible pales by the thought of super-quick rich millions by chance of getting a paper cut on an offshore bank deposit slip. It could not have had worse timing after the tech stock market bubble burst, and the average investor is now cyncial about the market as a whole. Greenspan has crushed investment savings rates to near Japan bottom, so the average fixed income person has no place to invest savings except for the market, a sinking market at that.