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A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news; the donkey died." Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already." Kenny said, "OK then, just unload the donkey." The farmer asked, "What ya goanna do with him?" Kenny, "I'm going to raffle him off." Farmer, " You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" Kenny, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead." A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?" Kenny, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars each and made a profit of $898.00. Then I sold the carcass to the glue factory for $5.00. Total profit: $903.00." Farmer, "Didn't anyone complain?" Kenny, " Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back." Kenny grew up and eventually became the CEO of Enron. Can you spell a-n-a-c-h-r-o-n-i-s-m? Sometimes Vee Jay seems anachronistic. She almost seems to be stuck in some kind of a time warp. It's a time and a place where things are what they seem and where things make sense. There is goodness, honor, integrity, truth, virtue; all those good things to which Americans pay lip service but don't take seriously. What do they take seriously? The admonitions of Machiavelli. These things if practised assiduously will bring one to ruination. O-x-y-m-o-r-o-n? Everyone knows that word. But for those who may not be quite on top of their English, foreign university students, flight school trainees and other potential infidels, we checked with the webwordwebster, Merriam Webster at m-w.com. How about a new word, o-x-y--e-n-r-o-n? Or oxyenronist? That could be a new word for a pointedly stupid person who believes the greatness of the American system of government was not diminished by eight Clinton years nor will be by the next eight years of Bush junior. The Clinton administration was headed by a Rhodes scholar who cleverly facilitated the silent passage of insidious legislation to which precious few newspapers except for the Japan Times, have given even a modicum of editorial space. Ye shall reap as ye have sown. Who was smart enough to become a Rhodes scholar? What Rhodes scholar was smart enough to become president? Who was smart enough to hide passage of the Ninety-Seven-Three Rule with a non-sex scandal red herring which was mostly hot air? Turns out that despite all the government shut downs, scandal smoke screens, and time wasting, the most significant legislation of the Clinton era became law. And it is that law that both the president and the corporate crooks will hide behind. The Ninety-Seven-Three Rule; the Clinton legacy. It's high noon and time for a show down, but accountants simply point at the corporate crooks and the corporate crooks point right back at the accountants. It's high time the good guys put a stop to these egregiously evil doings. Will anybody be deservedly punished? Only a moron could expect that outcome. The astuteness of the administration of the Rhodes scholar cum lawyer has paved the way for the administration of the law school reject. The American public will be fleeced with complete impunity. For someone or anyone to go directly to jail and not collect two hundred million dollars, there has to be two things. There has to be a willingnes to prosecute. There have to be laws which have been broken. The congress during the Clinton administration silently passed the 97-3 Rule. That is the rule which has legalized corporate megatheft. By creating bogus dummy companies execs can run their companies and company employees into the ground and reap huge megaprofits from it. It's much more effective than the Savings and Loan Scandal strategies. And it's explicitly legal. There is virtually zero desire to prosecute. Both Enron and Anderson execs got off completely scot free. Oh, one token lawyer was convicted of giving bad advice. Where was the real obstruction of justice? That was the decision to hang it on one token lawyer who was convicted of giving bad advice, and calling it obstruction of justice. What about the document shredding? What document shredding? Oh right the um, document shredding. Well, you'll be glad to know that that barn door may be shut. There's going to be a new law which will make document shredding explicitly illegal, after the horses have all skeedaddled. Heaven help the sacrificial lamb who runs afoul of that law. What about the tons of other stuff which was just plain illegal? The reporting of losses as profits? Do we need new laws for that too? Probably so. But, heaven help the sacrificial lamb who runs afoul of those new unnecessary laws. Vee Jay got a kick out of this little blurb which came out about July, 14 2002: "The Hypocrisy of Wall Street Culture July 14, 2002 By KATE JENNINGS In "The Devil's Dictionary," Ambrose Bierce famously defined a corporation as "an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." Bierce and his wicked definition came to mind when President Bush called for a "new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community" during his Wall Street speech. Bierce would've been delighted at the coincidence. To many of us, the president's rhetoric on Tuesday was all gaping gum, no teeth. If by chance, though, he was being sincere, Mr. Bush was knocking himself out for nothing because, as Bierce's definition implies, the structure of American corporations is inimical to the "new" ethic he was espousing. Despite the efforts of many fine people, American corporations are notorious for daddy-knows-best, brook-no-dissent cultures where personal responsibility more often dies than flourishes. They are also secretive, self-referential environments where transparency, Mr. Bush's other hobbyhorse, is unlikely to be embraced in any form, accounting or otherwise, except as window-dressing." "To return to Ambrose Bierce. Under the entry for "riches"
in "The Devil's Dictionary," instead of a definition, you
will find three quotes:
"A gift from Heaven signifying, `This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased.' " - John D. Rockefeller
"The reward of toil and virtue."
—J. P. Morgan
"The
savings of many in the hands of one." - Eugene Debs"
Statement by the President to the New York Stock Exchange Today, much as it pains me to say it - I'm afraid we're going to have to dispense with our usual routine of swapping business cards, secret handshakes, and wives. Yes, today I'm here on behalf of the American people - at least the non-millionaire, non-ivy legacy, non-landed gentry American people who are always getting in the way of our rightful and deserved progress. Unfortunately, I need to keep those poor morons deluded and happy if our kind are to win the next election, and at present, they're plenty steamed over the way you boys have been conducting business lately. Now of course I would love to continue to turn a blind eye to business as usual, much as my daddy did for me over my Harken deal back in '90. But that's just no longer possible. With the collapse of big outfits like Encom and Worldron, it's now clear to even the little people that many of you have gone too far, and that if I don't at least give some empty lip service to reigning you in, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that they're ever going to let us privatize Social Security. And boys, that's the prize. Don't ever forget it. Keep your eyes on it. Because once we get our hands on that, we're golden. Forever. And so today, in the interest of propagating the illusion that my entire legislative agenda isn't focused squarely on protecting the finances of the richest 1% of Americans, I want to announce the formation of a Corporate Fraud Task Force. Thank you, and God Bless." See the full story at: Nobody's going to jail so there's no satisfaction to be found in waiting for hell to freeze over. So what's the upside to all this nonsense? In May Mr. Forbes of Forbes Magazine said to wait until the situation looks really really bad and then go long on stocks. He said that if you do that you'd have a good Christmas in 2002. Maybe he knows something? Since stocks are so risky, we'd advise you to buy long options if you decide to play. Also be advised that strikes which are out of the money would provide the best ROI. That way you can buy your lottery tickets at pennies per share. Here's what Vee Jay thinks...
"The Boomerang Economy
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