>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/09/01 10:19AM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>WSJ has an article today the Lucent is under investigation by the
>SEC over possible fraudulent accounting practices.
And your point is...? You confirming Lenin's claims in Imperialism
about accounting practices getting ever murkier in the era of
"monopoly"? If that's the case, why's this a notable matter, and
why's the SEC investigating?
((((((((((
CB:
Doug, I really can't buy the idea that the only murky accounting practices that occur
are the ones that are discovered. Nor can I really trust that the SEC is a reliable
cop of all big bizness crimes. This is STATE-monopoly capitalism, as Lenin terms it in
_Imperialism_, meaning the state directly and increasingly serves the economic
interests of the monopolies and big biz, so the SEC is under suspicion itself. So, the
SEC's actions themselves are likely to be misleading in trying to determine the true
extent of murky practices.
When you take the position that Lenin also said that
company accounts were getting increasingly murky, in order to hide all
kinds of self-dealing and other financial chicanery and that while there are
some exceptions, this is hardly an accurate description of the
present, when "transparency" is all the rage, I have to wonder at your trust of these
companies claiming to use transparent accounting practices. It sounds like I could
sell you that big bridge in lower Manhattan not far from Wallstreet. I have to agree
with our friend on the other list who said to you:
I think *you're* out of sync with current reality here, Doug. Off the top
of my head, I can cite Xerox, Lucent, Cendant, Rite Aid, and Cisco as
examples of major companies that have had either huge accounting scandals of
late -- long undiscovered by supposedly crack auditors -- or grave
suspicions concerning their bookkeeping. This vaunted "transparency" is
just so much, ah, PR puffery.
CB: or when you say
That these were scandals which eventually came to light and which
typically came with severe punishment of the stock price (not to
mention an SEC investigation) suggests that these aren't norms.
CB: I think you have to be a little bit more skeptical of what is presented to you at
face value. One has to adopt more of the posture of a detective on this. Besides,
fraudulent accounting would not occur as a norm but at critical points. Any smart
crook knows that if they cheat too much they are more likely to get caught.
So as our friend says:
"Eventually" is the operative word there, Doug -- these cons were very
difficult to ferret out -- and clearly the incidence of these episodes is
increasing. Moreover, as the economy worsens, more desperate businesses
will surely cook their books also -- using all the artful dodging that
transborder financial flows and computer-aided fraud make possible. Score
one for Lenin, I say.
((((((((
CB: That was my thought exactly. Score one for Lenin in your debate with him.
Marxism is remarkably up to date, fresh in many ways, but , of course it is
insufficient, must be supplemented, modified. For example, interimperialist rivalry
is , in my opinion, significantly negated in the current historical period compared
with 1916. Significantly, this occurs through a dialectic with Leninism, in that the
imperialist countries' current unity (lack of or much less military rivalry) is a
product of their unifying to oppose the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In
other words, without the success of Leninism in the world, there might well still be
much more interimperialist rivalry. This is an example of dialectic by which an object
develops through the negation of one aspect of it by another. Imperialism begets
socialist revolution. Socialist revolution modifies imperialism.
