This seems to be the year of disillusionment. The high and mighty are falling right and left. Chinks are showing even in the armor of those who flouted their moral and ethical superiority. What a time for those in power to be so closely aligned with “bidness,” as they call it in Texas.
And the demise of CEOs is not limited to this country. In France, Vivendi International CEO Jean-Marie Messier, who single handedly (to hear his side of it) grew a water company into a global media empire and touted himself as an Americanized business leader (talk about bad timing), was given the boot. Oh, he wasn’t convicted of cooking the books to boost stock prices, but some of his decisions that didn’t pan out hurt the company’s bottom line, and his acquired American style alienated the French. C’est la vie.
On this side of the pond, the list of major corporations found to have “accounting irregularities” got longer, their leaders led away in handcuffs, prompting others to willingly disclose dodgy earnings reports and adjust downward their rosy profit reports.
Offshore corporate tax shelters are coming under scrutiny and some companies are deciding the bad press isn’t worth it. The loss of consumer confidence might outweigh the tax savings.
Even that doyen of domestic perfection, Martha the Stewart, is refusing to share her view of a stock deal that smacked of insider trading. Poor Martha. Will they drag her to The Hill and make her hold up her perfectly manicured hand to claim the Fifth? It was, after all, not her stock that was manipulated. She’d better bring homemade brownies and flower arrangements to the hearing to sway the investigators. Or would that be some kind of undue influence?
The way I see it, she did what anyone else would do if they had any reason to believe stock they held was on the brink of tanking. Her broker (his may be another story) could have hinted to her that others were selling their ImClone shares, for whatever reason, and that perhaps she might consider doing the same. Well, wouldn’t you dump yours? Isn’t that what a broker is supposed to do? Keep you from losing your shirt?
If I had known, for whatever reason, that my Prudential account managers would lose my money at an astonishing rate, I certainly would have jumped ship. As it was, I transferred money from an investment account to a mutual fund, but not before a significant part of my nest egg had vanished. And this wasn’t even a 401(k) from a failed company. Just savings I had hoped would grow to afford me comfort in my old age. Ah, well. The amount is too small and my profile too low to warrant the attention of Congress. They’re going to pick on someone with bigger bucks and a higher profile. Poor Martha.
But it’s not just business leaders getting into hot water. Politicians, some of them former CEOs, are refusing to talk about irregularities on their watch at companies that cheated shareholders, employees and consumers. Corporate leaders, who took huge bonuses while their companies floundered, were, if not flouting the law, certainly ethically challenged.
So now Californians will have to choose between the least popular incumbent governor in memory (and he didn’t have such a tough act to follow) and a man of business (whose lack of business sense is eclipsed by his total lack of political sense).
Is it even remotely possible that Republican challenger Bill Simon didn’t know his tax records would be scrutinized? Why, in the name of heaven didn’t he just put it all out there at the outset? I can’t imagine many reporters would have slogged through all those numbers if Simon hadn’t piqued their curiosity by refusing to release his tax returns.
So now what do we do? We have to choose between Simple Simon and the Pie Man, a phenom fund-raiser who knows how the game is played but chokes when the ball is in his court.
Honk if you think we’d be better off with Martha.