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Looking back at what I’ve been writing about in this space this year I see
that most of it in one way or another touches on the various business scandals
which seem to break out almost weekly, to the point where it becomes necessary
to index them and try to get them in order so as to reduce the confusion
caused by such, ah, profusion, as Jesse Jackson might put it.
I set out to perform this public service only to find right away that a
fellow named Bill Moyers had anticipated me and made an index of his own. This is
something he’s well qualified to do. He got his start in the scandal game as
a confidential aide to am old practitioner who wallowed in them for most of
his life -- Lyndon Johnson. Moyers doesn’t mention this aspect of Johnson’s
career any more, but it hasn’t been forgotten by everyone. I immediately went
to the Bobby Baker story on Google to refresh my recollection of it.
Baker was Johnson’s secretary while he was in the Senate and in the Vice
Presidency. His “campaign contribution” activities became so notorious that he
got the reputation of being Johnson’s bagman. He was forced out of his job in
October 1963. He was so hot that John F. Kennedy’s secretary later revealed
that he had decided to replace his (Baker’s) boss, Johnson, with another
Southerner for the 1964 election.
Up to this point the Google story is straightforward and deals with known
facts. For this reason I wasn’t prepared for the author’s matter-of-fact
conclusion that the Baker crisis in October ’63 caused Lyndon Johnson to order the
planned assassination of Kennedy to go forward in November of that year. My
first reaction was “If he hadn’t done that, we would have never heard of Bill
Moyers”. My second one was “What’s going on here?” What’s going on is that
Google is just like Time (not the magazine): It brings all things, including
conspiracy theories, and how about this -- Baker’s secretary died in a plane
crash in 1965. She was a roommate of none other than Mary Jo Kopechne. We’re
in deep waters here.
Oh yes, the Baker investigation got swept under the rug when Johnson suddenly
became President. And Bill Moyers is flourishing today. Instead of being
investigated he’s writing about other people’s investigations.
His list is as follows:
Adelphia
Rigas family set to go on trial in January for alleged looting of their
company in the amount of $3 billion. Was sixth-largest cable company in the U.S.
Arthur Anderson and Enron
The former CFO of Enron has pleaded guilty to tax evasion and other frauds
and will get ten years in a federal prison. His wife, a former assistant
treasurer, is already doing a year in one. This isn’t even punishment. It’s their
reward for (yes) cooperating with the government. The former CEO has been
indicted for fraud along with the former Chairman. Arthur Andersen Inc., the
company auditor, was fined $500,000 for fraud and in effect went out of business.
Global Crossing
The man who built this fiber-optic company, Gary Winnick, sold $734 million
worth of stock, including $123 million in the weeks before the company
collapsed.. He was not indicted.
ImClone Systems Inc.
The former CEO pleaded guilty to insider trading because he dumped his stock
upon hearing that the Food and Drug Administration was rejecting a new drug
created by his company. His friend Martha Stewart also dumped her stock, but
fought the charges and lost, resulting in her imprisonment.
Merrill Lynch and Co.
Merrill puffed Internet stocks it privately despised, to get more business
from the issuers. The company paid a $200 million fine.
Tyco
The CEO and CFO of this company got a mistrial after six months in a New York
State court being tried for conspiracy, securities fraud and grand larceny.
There will be a retrial next year, plus a separate trial for the corporation
counsel.
Moyers goes on to list a couple of other blue-sky enterprises, Qwest and
WorldCom, which have made his honor roll, but I’d rather use my remaining space to
update the news of some other operations, which are more recent and in two
cases are local outbreaks. Here they are:
Computer Associates
Indictments, indictments. Will they never stop? The former CEO of this Long
Island company, which provides corporate software around the world, was
indicted by the feds for cooking the books with 35-day months, whereby receipts for
one month were credited to another month where they were more needed, thereby
inflating the stock price and executive bonuses. The sales director was also
indicted.
Fannie Mae
The Federal National Mortgage Association, which supports the mortgage market
by buying them from lenders, is under investigation for allegedly pushing
$200,000 in expenses into a future year, so as to qualify six executives for $6
million in bonuses. Still in the Mt. St. Helen’s phase, with smoke and gas
rising from the crater, but the lava yet to come.
Rathergate
To flee or not to flee, that is the question. How long can Dan hold out?
Will he go before the election? Will he get away with waiting till it’s over?
Will Bush bring it up in the next debate? I would. I wouldn’t go on looking
like Alfred E. Newman, as he did a bit the other night.
Roslyn
Not to be mixed up with Roswell. Those guys who got away with the $8 million
from the school budget weren’t space aliens, they were “educators”. Once
more America has been awakened to hidden enemies lurking in our midst, unseen by
the public, but always waiting to strike. When they see a fat school budget,
they launch a sneak attack and pretty soon another treasury has been Pearl
Harbored. After heavy losses the Roslyn front has now been stabilized, but all
over Long Island, perhaps even all over the country, there are pockets of
resistance still holding out in well-camouflaged positions, who will not give up
their loot without a fight. I hope to do a little war correspondence.
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