Oct. 09, 2002 - 22:18 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Comes Around

Here it is October Ninth and the political dance goes on, Molly Ivins is the Creator's Syndicate lady who says which fox is in whose hen house. She usually shows that it is John Q's hen house and most of the time its one of our dear politicians or another. In her column today she says, "Meaningful reform of corporate evils is toast."

In her column she cites all these good things that were supposed to happen and says, "Bottom line: its all going to happen again. We learned zip from the entire financial collapse. Our political system is too bought-off to respond intelligently." Then she starts naming names. "Pitt, President Bush's appointee to the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and a career-long mercenary for the securities industry, is the lawyer who memorably advised in one law journal article: If you get in trouble, shred the evidence." "He came in promising to make the SEC a kinder gentler place for accountants."

At one time according to Molly, Pitt, "came under such heavy political fire during the financial collapse that he was suddenly out there flirting with Paul Volcker, Arthur Levitt and other genuinely concerned citizens with actual ideas about how to fix this ghastly mess."

"Molly says, "According to the New York Times: Harvey L. Pitt, under pressure from Republicans and former CLIENTS (caps mine) in the accounting industry, is backing away from the choice he and other members of the SEC favored to lead the new federal agency that will oversee the industry. Industry executives and at least one prominent Republican lawmaker complained that the top choice John H. Biggs, was too tough on the industry." According to Molly, Biggs, head of the pension investment plan TIAA-CREF -- has spoken up strongly for the need to make companies more stringently accountable for stock options, making companies rotate their auditors every few years, and for separating the auditing and consulting functions of accounting firms.

Molly says, "The Sarbanes bill set up a new five-member board to oversee the accounting industry. Bibbs was the much touted choice to head this board -- both Pitt and another SEC Commissioner had announced their support -- when oops, the accounting industry weighed in." To quote Molly a bit out of order, "The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee issued its report on Enron on Sunday, blaming the SEC for 'systemic and catastrophic failure'"

So it appears she says,"So now we are to get an industry-approved board -- just what we need." Regarding the SEC Committee report Molly Ivins says, "It is a comprehensive and utterly damning evaluation about which, it now appears, the Pitt-led SEC is prepared to do absolutely nothing."

It seems to verify that my cynicism and distrust of our present office holders is a valid feeling. They make a big fuss and while the public thinks that things are being done to correct the situation, said situation seems to disappear or at least go so far into the background that we average Joe's feel that things are being taken care of and our forgettery goes into high gear. Seems to me that if we don't begin to pay attention and keep track of events as well as do something peacefully to insist on things being run correctly, we will go down the tube much like other countries.

As has been said,- what goes around Comes Around . . . . . . . . .

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