Salad
: The crisis in confidence in American business management only gets worse.
Now Worldcom says it has uncovered massive fraud: costs that should have counted as operating expenses — coming out of the current P&L — were instead counted as capital expenditures, which can be depreciated in the future. Thus the bottom line was inflated by $3.8 billion over five quarters.
As a result, Worldcom is expected to declare bankruptcy.
Worldcom runs most of the Internet.
Meanwhile, Martha Stewart kept trying to change the subject when she was quizzed about her stock trading scandal on CBS this morning. “I want to focus on my salad,” she snipped as she snipped her lettuce.
And the stock market tanked. Again.
Enron… Anderson… Qwest… Adelphia… Global Crossing…
Meanwhile, consumer confidence tanked. Again.
And airlines went begging for federal loans while Amtrak damned near died.
And terrorism fears continue.
And war fears continue.
What a frigging mess.
I hate to give all you libertarians the heebie-jeebies but… It is time for some GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. We need regulation; the last few months are the proof that a completely unfettered marketplace will be up to no good. We need government reassurances that they will clean up business; we cannot rely on business to police itself. We need help.
Thanks to Osama bin Laden and a bunch of crooked CEOs, the American economy is sinking into the sewer.
Help!
Demos
: The wise Andrew Sullivan is running a survey to find out the demographics of his audience because sponsors want to know.
This would be a wise move for a larger group of bloggers to do. The more we know about you (aka us), the readers, the more we can make the case for our business.
Any volunteers?