We, the undersigned companies and CEO's below, would like to thank the the U.S. Government for looking the other way. We also want to thank the SEC for never doing their job, as well as both houses of the legislative branch for passing bills that allowed the SEC to look the other way.
However our greatest appreciation goes out to the Federal Reserve (special mention to the former chair Alan Greenspan, our personal friend and ally) without them giving us the hard earned money by every American taxpayer to bail us out of this mess we created, and forgive us of several decades of greed, corruption and full knowledge that we were going to fuck the entire country as well as the world markets - we would never have made so much money in such a short period of time.

Thank You...
P.S.> We will traveling the world in our 60 ft yachts so we may not be available for future comment.

Company.......................5 year CEO compensation they keep.

Bear Stearns.................$136,350,000
Lehman Brothers...........$353,055,000
Fannie Mae......................$43,950,000 (bonus not clearly definable)
Freddie Mac.....................$17,000,000 ((bonus not clearly definable)
AIG..................................$55,650,000

Its the stockholders job to watch the CEOs through election of board members. Govt should stay out of it.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

That's pretty funny.
So the people who equally profit from the cheating, greed and corruption - and who are told incorrect information since the SEC and FED have allowed such an incredible amount of revenue/assets/liabilities to be "off the books" - so that stockholders and potential investors have NO WAY of really knowing how well a company is doing (case in point Bear Stearns on day of collapse was rated "AA" and 4 stars)
Yeah...good luck with that.

You have no idea how it really works, do you?

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Does no good if their stock is worth nothing, as it is now.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

I have no idea what point you are making with this.
You asserted it is up to the stockholders to oversee how management operates a company...I pointed out how ludicrous and impossible that is with how easily it is for large corporations to hide assets and liabilities thanks to dumbass allowances passed by both the NY state government and the SEC/FED.

Its in the stockholders interest to run the company correctly, not let CEOs, the board, and other stockholders run it into the ground. The corporation owners are soley responsible for the actions of the company.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Sooo...it should be perfectly legal and ethical for a company to have the ability to hide assets and liabilities from stockholders and everyone else?

You are not answering the question wholly.

Its up to the company owners to run the business as they see fit. If you buy stock you should make sure the company is run how you want it, which means making sure their is a process in place to prevent corruption. I dont see why there needs to be a centralized govt system to govern people investing in a company. Take a local mom and pop. If I give them $10k to expand in return for a share of the profits, do I need govt to watch them and make sure they are telling me whats going on? No, that is my job to make sure I made a wise invest. I can look at the revenue, spending, and mamagement. My problem here is that we have handed over so much responsibility to the govt that everyone assumes nothing will go wrong, the govt will take care of it, and there is no need for me to ever check anything myself. WOW, did that backfire.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Not meaning to be a smart-ass really....you are still not answering the question...sort of like how a politician answers without answering.

In order for your "answer" to work - everyone has to be totally honest, and there could never be corruption in business whatsoever...unfortunately we are people - not angels.
While I agree that few entities can screw things up more than government, however there HAS to be some sort of oversight for PUBLIC companies to ensure that potential stockholders and actual stockholders can read the companies performance.....and here we go again jviehe...you say "it is up to the stockholder that the company runs like you want it"....however if there are provisions allowed by law whereby a company can legally "off-book" assets and liabilities that make it IMPOSSIBLE to see (excuse the french) but how the f*ck is a stockholder supposed to know how the company is run???????????

Your question was whether "it should be perfectly legal and ethical for a company to have the ability to hide assets and liabilities from stockholders and everyone else?"

The answer is of course, no, it shouldnt be ethical, yes it should be legal (or rather not illegal). All I said was it is the stockholders responsibility to ensure ethics, not the govt.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

And how does the stockholder do this, exactly?

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

I believe he answered that...they can't - and there should be no laws to be sure they can.
His answers are essentially self-contradictory...I like jviehe, I appreciate his optimism.
He will eventually come around to reality.

If the government bails out a company, the CEO compensation packages should be confiscated. Go ahead and become rich if you run a company correctly, and let it swim in profits. But if you run it into the ground, and force the taxpayers to bail you out, you shouldn't receive a dime on your way out the door.

Well your "representatives" in congress took out a provision that was in the original F&F bailout - so Fannie's CEO - made $90 million in 6 years...thanks to his faithfully bribed friends in Washington - he keeps it.