Mike wrote: >Personally I'm not sure about 'a large majority' having benefited, but let's not talk about the numbers. >I am sure many people have indeed benefited. My question is; 'Is this fair?'
A large majority of employed people in the U.S. receive, as one of their many job benefits, the opportunity to invest in a retirement plan. Five places I've worked in the past 25 years have all offered similar plans where you have a percentage of income deducted out of each paycheck and the employer either contributes a percentage of that amount and/or contributes a percentage of company profits. The employee then has a number of options of where to invest these contributions - anywhere from a safe money market account or government bonds (which pay the lowest returns - around 3%) to the more speculative investments in stocks, start-up companies, etc. The more speculative investments pay a much larger return (sometimes up to 20%) but are also more risky (in a bad quarter one could lose 20%). I personally spread my investments out over both safe and more risky funds. I'm not sure what you mean by asking "is that fair?" My point was that a large majority of people in the U.S. are in these funds and would naturally have earned high returns for a period of time when everyone thought or gave the opinion that things were "booming." >Kakki's second point is that now some of these people will perhaps pay for these practices, and my >second question is the same as the first; 'Is this fair?' A lot of us are paying for it because we lost money in those accounts which held stock in companies whose financial statements were ultimately false or inflated. I've lost money but it was offset a lot by my other "safe" investment accounts. >Should not the people who invest their futures in these companies (and the people who allow other >'experts' to handle their money) have the right to correct financial information about where their >money is going? ABSOLUTELY. >Generally speaking (and I stress generally although I include in this category Bush's alleged >wrongdoing) I am of the opinion that the more investigations the better. >Should we have accepted the words of the Warren Commission as gospel or was it better to have >the second investigation which proved there was a conspiracy, or at least that Lee Harvey Oswald >was not acting alone or was a lone gunman? No, you cannot compare a criminal act of murder to someone being questioned about a minor stock sale issue which was already investigated twice by the SEC and dismissed. I worked on a stock violation case involving a wealthy and famous family 12 years ago under that same SEC and my experience of them was that they were hardcore and did not play around at all. People shouldn't waste the system's time and dime to keep re-trying and re-trying minor junk just to wishfully hope (generally) for a politically based different outcome. >Although I'm not a lawyer, I would say that 'criminal' is a better word than 'dismal' for what has >happened and still happens, but I agree with the sentiment. I've said for 20 years that corporate, accounting and stock dealer malfeasance is criminal and I think those who are convicted should go to jail for a long time. My use of the word "dismal" today stems from my sadness at hearing of so many personal stories lately of the innocent employees of these corporations and accounting firms who, after years of being conscientious and ethical, are losing everything they worked for because of a few rotten eggs in their midst. I think it is really a tragedy that those people are now being thrown out on the street because of a few who cared nothing about anyone else but themselves. Kakki
