Enough about AIG. You are talking about 16 guys out of 100,000 honest hardworking employees who have lost money too- some have lost everything !
THAT IS NOT THE PROBLEM PEOPLE!!!!!
The criminals are New Century Financial Corp & the sub mortgage lenders.
AIG sold invesement products based on the garbage mortgages these lenders sold. No one knew how bad they were except for the lenders. The criminals are the Counterparties like GOLDMAN and the foreign banks who through a back door got 100% of their investments back.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM. WHERE IS THE INTELLIGENCE IN THIS COUNTRY?
Why did Bernake former goldman get away with this? THIS IS THE CONFLICT
The accounting/audit firms never learn. They have been partners in crime for virtually every major financial failure in this country.
Investors rely heavily on the accuracy of their work and details of any comments they have regarding a customer’s ongoing business activities. We shouldn’t. I am beginning to think that the huge fees they receive offset any fiduciary duty to the public they might have.
The accounting/audit firms never learn. They have been partners in crime for virtually every major financial failure in this country.
Investors rely heavily on the accuracy of their work and details of any comments they have regarding a customer’s ongoing business activities. We shouldn’t. I am beginning to think that the huge fees they receive offset any fiduciary duty to the public they might have.
I’ll let the lawyers, accountants, juries and judges figure out the efficacy of this claim, but I’m most interested in the final paragraph.
Why?
Remember, the Federal Government has said they should be able to step in and control companies BEFORE anything catastrophic happens – for the good of our economy, and the world’s economy.
Get ready KPMG and others. The government is here, and they are here to help you.
If the government moves to take control of the major accounting firms, there will be no stopping them if they eye ANY major businesses after that. They will have control of the books and be able to show via spreadsheets (which can clearly be skewed to say anything legitimate auditors want them to say anyway – see Enron) why they need to take over the next business or industry for the good of the people.
That slippery slope is quickly getting slipperier and steeper, folks. We’re going to get the protection we’re all seemingly asking for – and it’s going to be as good as any inmates can find in an insane asylum. That’s a pretty safe place with padded walls, warm jackets, three hots and a cot. What more can the little people ask for?
Read that last paragraph again and imagine the current government, with the media’s take on public demand, not saying/thinking this is a place where our increasingly socialist government needs to step in and control. After all, we can’t let this kind of worldwide disaster happen again, can we?
Final question as asked by a former citizen of a communist state close by, how do you catch wild hogs? Answer – slowly, with lots of corn, and one side of a fence at a time. I think we are getting really close to gate time.
Main Entry: pe·on
Pronunciation: \ˈpē-ˌän, -ən also pā-ˈōn
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural peons or pe·o·nes \pā-ˈō-nēz\
Etymology: Portuguese peão & French pion, from Medieval Latin pedon-, pedo foot soldier — more at pawn
Date: 1609
1: any of various workers in India, Sri Lanka, or Malaysia: as a: infantryman b: orderly
2 [Spanish peón, from Latin pedon-, pedo] : a member of the landless laboring class in Spanish America
3plural peons a: a person held in compulsory servitude to a master for the working out of an indebtedness b: drudge , menial
accounting firms work for the people that hired them – the firms do what they are told by their client. and who gets to see the real set of books on the company is the question everyone should be asking. it appears to me that a lot of mothers out there didn’t teach their children its not right to lie.
Relax, Mr. Chicken Little. The government is not taking over accounting firms and we are not turning, communist, socialist, fascist…whatever. Someone is suing this firm for screwing up. Where did you read or hear that the government is going into the accounting business? KMPG performs a service (poorly). If they go belly-up, the government will not need to rescue them. The financial industry or civilization is not dependent on these clowns like we are dependent on the banks, auto industry, etc. Sounds like you are listening to too much Rush.
Um – listening to Rush, no. I haven’t listened to him in years. However, I can see the progression. I’m sorry you can’t.
Nobody has announced that the Feds were taking over KPMG yet. Give it some time.
You talk about rescuing KPMG, but again, that’s not what I said. I’m not talking about rescuing them at all.
What I did try to say, is that it will not take much of a stretch to say that the big accounting firm’s screw-ups are causing great financial difficulties when those audited companies that don’t measure up to the marks that were indicated by those fine auditors, are suddenly found insolvent and then THOSE companies need to be bailed out.
Because of that, it will not take much more of a stretch to say this practice can’t go on, and then it will not take much more of a stretch for Geitner/Obama/McCain/Feingold/Hutchison, (you know, the established crew) to say its of National importance for the government to control those companies for the good of the country – for the good of the world.
Downhill from there, dude.
You say the financial industry is not dependent on these clowns, to quote you, and directly you are correct. But, read the article again. The lawsuit is saying that Enron and AIG type failures are preceded by these auditor’s mischaracterizations. Well, if the current crash can be tied to these mischaracterizations, then why would it not seem logical for our legislators to figure it’s in the National Interest to control those companies?
They want to control GM, don’t they? Did I misread that news story? Who essentially fired the CEO?
Rush didn’t tell me about it. Have you listened to Lou Dobbs? Is he as far to the right as Rush?
For the record, chicken little will say again, its not a political sided problem. George Bush greased the skids mightily for the socialization of our country. I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing, but it wasn’t. Obama has taken the ball and run with it. I’m sure he and Geitner think they are doing the right thing, but it’s not.
Pull you head out of the sand. Stop drinking the kool-aid on either side of the aisle and just use your mind. That is, unless it was steeped in too many drugs in your youth (assuming the steeping has stopped).
Perhaps if the auditors, and complicit Sr. Staff, where held criminally liable (think fraud because that is what it is!), then perhaps the KPMG’s, Enrons, Worldcoms and AIG’s wouldn’t happen.
Until there is a heavy personal price to pay for ill gotten gains, then all of the fraud will just continue.
Smart Girl is correct in this response. It’s the Goldman Sachs (and others like) and their complicit government bureaucrats and politicians that really caused this problem. Ask yourself why so very many former Goldman execs leave to serve in our government. Are they really that charitable with their time? Why do they leave a position where they are making millions to take a percentage of their normal salary? Hmmm. That company must really search hard to find so many humanitarians. We’re so lucky!
But primarily, it was the Federal Government threatening to come down on the lenders if they did not do the FAIR thing and lend to the financially challenged. Then, they offered their backing through Fannie and Freddie, and the ball was already heading downhill.
Any insurance agent with a few months in the business, that sold Homeowners, could tell you in about 2 minutes worth of phone conversation with these buyers, who needed insurance for their closing’s, that this was going to be a temporary policy. It was not rocket science to determine these people didn’t have any money, they were buying a home that was too big, they got a loan that did not have an escrow, and many times it was a newly built structure that only had taxes for the vacant property showing up on their cost estimates. Were they shocked at the end of the year when they got an insurance bill for $1500 and a tax bill that went from $300 to $5,000?
Duh!
But, it wasn’t fair to tell these people to hold on and try saving a little more cash first. It wasn’t fair to ask for a down payment on the home. It wasn’t fair to make them have their insurance and taxes included in their mortgages.
Well, fairness equates to mediocrity. Mediocrity rarely rises and usually falls lower. We have become so instilled with the idea that fairness is what this country should be all about, and that’s the real root of the trouble and the reason these political bozos can step in and manipulate the system.
America was not founded on fairness. Equality, yes. But, that was only at the moment of birth. After that, it was only through hard work and ingenuity that one succeeded. And the best part was in the opportunity that this very principle offered. Look how many nobodies flocked into this country. That’s what made us the greatest country ever!
But, that wasn’t good enough. There were some people that didn’t think it was fair to live under that design. They didn’t succeed, and that wasn’t fair. So, we’ve come up with volumes of laws in an attempt to remedy something that can’t be remedied on this earth. In that process, opportunity has been forgotten by most and nearly squashed. All the fairness doctrines, and the feel-good initiatives have left us with a bunch of limp wrists, and now those limp wrists are still complaining and wanting to drag this country further into the dumpster of whiners.
It’s time to man up and make it everyone’s own personal responsibility to work hard and obtain the things they feel they need. Until then, the pencil-necked, limp-wristed politicians will take us for everything we’ve got. 14 Trillion and counting, folks.
You are correct that KPMG is a private company. However, public or private, what’s the difference? The Fed was not a stockholder of GM either.
Yes, they were bailout recipients, but listen to what the Fed is now saying. They want more power to preemptively step in and control companies that, as they say, could effectively become detrimental to our economy. Well, if KPMG doesn’t fit that bill, I don’t know who would. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying KPMG truly caused the trouble this lawsuit claims they did, but the media reports will shape the public’s opinion on this matter, and facts will have little importance.
If the Federal Government feels the public will allow them another power grab, why wouldn’t those self-serving, borderline sociopath, politicians step in under the guise of protecting the country’s economy? It’s the FAIR thing to do.
I just hope Texas pursues the possibility of Secession. That might be our last chance for a free country.
By the way, does anyone think it’s ironic that the democrats lambasted George Bush for seeking preemptive military strikes against countries that could be detrimental to us, but now those same folks want to preemptively strike at businesses that could also be detrimental to our country? I don’t think either one was truly correct, but at least one could be linked to direct possible devastation, while the other is usually only an accomplice to any possible devastation.
True enough Capitalism isn’t necessarily designed to be fair; as a matter of fact it rarely is… generally the affluent rule. However, our society must allow for opportunity. “Equal” opportunity? Well that’s perhaps a matter of semantics. Peon Agent seems to be arguing that our Government has too much control over its citizens… a compelling argument and well articulated.
Intellectually, it wouldn’t seem to be such a difficult task for our Government to police greed without getting in the way of an open and free market, but historically it’s been a very fine line indeed. Each ideology of a particular political party, when in power, seems to tip the scale one way of the other. Perhaps it’s impossible balancing act. The laissez-faire agenda of our most recent Administration (which incidentally was promulgated by the Democratic majority the last two-years) is now being reigned in by the heavy-handed federalist agenda of our current Administration.
Interestingly, the middle-class has been left largely unaffected by the last several Administrations. Actually the overall wealth of the middle-class has increased significantly in the last 40-years. I’m assuming must who read this would fit into that class. Is anyone here feeling the affects of the recent downturn? Just curious.
Other than needing an editor for my prior post (I apologize for the glaring grammatical errors) I actually looked up the US Census Bureau website. Here take a look –
I understand that this is just raw data, but the median income has generally increased over the years even when accounting for inflation. True, when compared to the raise in GDP during this same period the median income should have been much higher. No doubt, the rich got richer.
KPMG screwed up, just like a ton of organizations that got pulled into this sub-prime quagmire. However, neither the congress, nor the media wants to talk about the fact that Janet Reno, under the direction of Bill Clinton, was the start of all this sh!t when she sued Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to FORCE them to make crappy loans to people who wouldn’t have qualified. In other words, make business decisions that were otherwise indefensible. Do businesses like to risk their capital on losers that won’t repay loans? No, but when Uncle Sam says you must and makes it ok…well then everyone and their uncle will be falling over themselves to beat the competing lender to the next bad loan. What a freaking mess. Sack the congress, sack President B.O. and get some people in there that understand business and risk. Elect more insurance veterans!!
KPMG is a privately held company. It is a partnership. The government cannot take them over.
Know your subject matter
Enough about AIG. You are talking about 16 guys out of 100,000 honest hardworking employees who have lost money too- some have lost everything !
THAT IS NOT THE PROBLEM PEOPLE!!!!!
The criminals are New Century Financial Corp & the sub mortgage lenders.
AIG sold invesement products based on the garbage mortgages these lenders sold. No one knew how bad they were except for the lenders. The criminals are the Counterparties like GOLDMAN and the foreign banks who through a back door got 100% of their investments back.
THIS IS THE PROBLEM. WHERE IS THE INTELLIGENCE IN THIS COUNTRY?
Why did Bernake former goldman get away with this? THIS IS THE CONFLICT
So KMPG doesn’t audit so good? What’s the problem?…Arthur Anderson didn’t audit Enron so good and nothing happened to them did it…?
The accounting/audit firms never learn. They have been partners in crime for virtually every major financial failure in this country.
Investors rely heavily on the accuracy of their work and details of any comments they have regarding a customer’s ongoing business activities. We shouldn’t. I am beginning to think that the huge fees they receive offset any fiduciary duty to the public they might have.
We just cash their checks, you didn’t actually expect us to earn our money did you?
The accounting/audit firms never learn. They have been partners in crime for virtually every major financial failure in this country.
Investors rely heavily on the accuracy of their work and details of any comments they have regarding a customer’s ongoing business activities. We shouldn’t. I am beginning to think that the huge fees they receive offset any fiduciary duty to the public they might have.
I’ll let the lawyers, accountants, juries and judges figure out the efficacy of this claim, but I’m most interested in the final paragraph.
Why?
Remember, the Federal Government has said they should be able to step in and control companies BEFORE anything catastrophic happens – for the good of our economy, and the world’s economy.
Get ready KPMG and others. The government is here, and they are here to help you.
If the government moves to take control of the major accounting firms, there will be no stopping them if they eye ANY major businesses after that. They will have control of the books and be able to show via spreadsheets (which can clearly be skewed to say anything legitimate auditors want them to say anyway – see Enron) why they need to take over the next business or industry for the good of the people.
That slippery slope is quickly getting slipperier and steeper, folks. We’re going to get the protection we’re all seemingly asking for – and it’s going to be as good as any inmates can find in an insane asylum. That’s a pretty safe place with padded walls, warm jackets, three hots and a cot. What more can the little people ask for?
Read that last paragraph again and imagine the current government, with the media’s take on public demand, not saying/thinking this is a place where our increasingly socialist government needs to step in and control. After all, we can’t let this kind of worldwide disaster happen again, can we?
Final question as asked by a former citizen of a communist state close by, how do you catch wild hogs? Answer – slowly, with lots of corn, and one side of a fence at a time. I think we are getting really close to gate time.
BAM!!!
Main Entry: pe·on
Pronunciation: \ˈpē-ˌän, -ən also pā-ˈōn
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural peons or pe·o·nes \pā-ˈō-nēz\
Etymology: Portuguese peão & French pion, from Medieval Latin pedon-, pedo foot soldier — more at pawn
Date: 1609
1: any of various workers in India, Sri Lanka, or Malaysia: as a: infantryman b: orderly
2 [Spanish peón, from Latin pedon-, pedo] : a member of the landless laboring class in Spanish America
3plural peons a: a person held in compulsory servitude to a master for the working out of an indebtedness b: drudge , menial
Comrades, I am watching your company and your accounting ledgers. This will help me with my Socialist agenda.
Please ignore the little problem I had when I ignored my accountant’s advice and falsified my tax forms.
accounting firms work for the people that hired them – the firms do what they are told by their client. and who gets to see the real set of books on the company is the question everyone should be asking. it appears to me that a lot of mothers out there didn’t teach their children its not right to lie.
Tim, which is it, are you a communist or a socialist? Comrades? You cant have it both ways a hole.
So now I’m wondering what will be on Phil’s cap the next time I see him… maybe he and the Stanford endorsees should get together.
Relax, Mr. Chicken Little. The government is not taking over accounting firms and we are not turning, communist, socialist, fascist…whatever. Someone is suing this firm for screwing up. Where did you read or hear that the government is going into the accounting business? KMPG performs a service (poorly). If they go belly-up, the government will not need to rescue them. The financial industry or civilization is not dependent on these clowns like we are dependent on the banks, auto industry, etc. Sounds like you are listening to too much Rush.
Um – listening to Rush, no. I haven’t listened to him in years. However, I can see the progression. I’m sorry you can’t.
Nobody has announced that the Feds were taking over KPMG yet. Give it some time.
You talk about rescuing KPMG, but again, that’s not what I said. I’m not talking about rescuing them at all.
What I did try to say, is that it will not take much of a stretch to say that the big accounting firm’s screw-ups are causing great financial difficulties when those audited companies that don’t measure up to the marks that were indicated by those fine auditors, are suddenly found insolvent and then THOSE companies need to be bailed out.
Because of that, it will not take much more of a stretch to say this practice can’t go on, and then it will not take much more of a stretch for Geitner/Obama/McCain/Feingold/Hutchison, (you know, the established crew) to say its of National importance for the government to control those companies for the good of the country – for the good of the world.
Downhill from there, dude.
You say the financial industry is not dependent on these clowns, to quote you, and directly you are correct. But, read the article again. The lawsuit is saying that Enron and AIG type failures are preceded by these auditor’s mischaracterizations. Well, if the current crash can be tied to these mischaracterizations, then why would it not seem logical for our legislators to figure it’s in the National Interest to control those companies?
They want to control GM, don’t they? Did I misread that news story? Who essentially fired the CEO?
Rush didn’t tell me about it. Have you listened to Lou Dobbs? Is he as far to the right as Rush?
For the record, chicken little will say again, its not a political sided problem. George Bush greased the skids mightily for the socialization of our country. I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing, but it wasn’t. Obama has taken the ball and run with it. I’m sure he and Geitner think they are doing the right thing, but it’s not.
Pull you head out of the sand. Stop drinking the kool-aid on either side of the aisle and just use your mind. That is, unless it was steeped in too many drugs in your youth (assuming the steeping has stopped).
Perhaps if the auditors, and complicit Sr. Staff, where held criminally liable (think fraud because that is what it is!), then perhaps the KPMG’s, Enrons, Worldcoms and AIG’s wouldn’t happen.
Until there is a heavy personal price to pay for ill gotten gains, then all of the fraud will just continue.
Smart Girl is correct in this response. It’s the Goldman Sachs (and others like) and their complicit government bureaucrats and politicians that really caused this problem. Ask yourself why so very many former Goldman execs leave to serve in our government. Are they really that charitable with their time? Why do they leave a position where they are making millions to take a percentage of their normal salary? Hmmm. That company must really search hard to find so many humanitarians. We’re so lucky!
But primarily, it was the Federal Government threatening to come down on the lenders if they did not do the FAIR thing and lend to the financially challenged. Then, they offered their backing through Fannie and Freddie, and the ball was already heading downhill.
Any insurance agent with a few months in the business, that sold Homeowners, could tell you in about 2 minutes worth of phone conversation with these buyers, who needed insurance for their closing’s, that this was going to be a temporary policy. It was not rocket science to determine these people didn’t have any money, they were buying a home that was too big, they got a loan that did not have an escrow, and many times it was a newly built structure that only had taxes for the vacant property showing up on their cost estimates. Were they shocked at the end of the year when they got an insurance bill for $1500 and a tax bill that went from $300 to $5,000?
Duh!
But, it wasn’t fair to tell these people to hold on and try saving a little more cash first. It wasn’t fair to ask for a down payment on the home. It wasn’t fair to make them have their insurance and taxes included in their mortgages.
Well, fairness equates to mediocrity. Mediocrity rarely rises and usually falls lower. We have become so instilled with the idea that fairness is what this country should be all about, and that’s the real root of the trouble and the reason these political bozos can step in and manipulate the system.
America was not founded on fairness. Equality, yes. But, that was only at the moment of birth. After that, it was only through hard work and ingenuity that one succeeded. And the best part was in the opportunity that this very principle offered. Look how many nobodies flocked into this country. That’s what made us the greatest country ever!
But, that wasn’t good enough. There were some people that didn’t think it was fair to live under that design. They didn’t succeed, and that wasn’t fair. So, we’ve come up with volumes of laws in an attempt to remedy something that can’t be remedied on this earth. In that process, opportunity has been forgotten by most and nearly squashed. All the fairness doctrines, and the feel-good initiatives have left us with a bunch of limp wrists, and now those limp wrists are still complaining and wanting to drag this country further into the dumpster of whiners.
It’s time to man up and make it everyone’s own personal responsibility to work hard and obtain the things they feel they need. Until then, the pencil-necked, limp-wristed politicians will take us for everything we’ve got. 14 Trillion and counting, folks.
Can you say – CHARGE IT!
Sorry, Smart Girl, but not so much this time.
You are correct that KPMG is a private company. However, public or private, what’s the difference? The Fed was not a stockholder of GM either.
Yes, they were bailout recipients, but listen to what the Fed is now saying. They want more power to preemptively step in and control companies that, as they say, could effectively become detrimental to our economy. Well, if KPMG doesn’t fit that bill, I don’t know who would. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying KPMG truly caused the trouble this lawsuit claims they did, but the media reports will shape the public’s opinion on this matter, and facts will have little importance.
If the Federal Government feels the public will allow them another power grab, why wouldn’t those self-serving, borderline sociopath, politicians step in under the guise of protecting the country’s economy? It’s the FAIR thing to do.
I just hope Texas pursues the possibility of Secession. That might be our last chance for a free country.
By the way, does anyone think it’s ironic that the democrats lambasted George Bush for seeking preemptive military strikes against countries that could be detrimental to us, but now those same folks want to preemptively strike at businesses that could also be detrimental to our country? I don’t think either one was truly correct, but at least one could be linked to direct possible devastation, while the other is usually only an accomplice to any possible devastation.
Just things that make me go, hmmm.
Your comments are so long winded – Do you think anyone reads your drivel? too long….
No wonder yout boss pisses on you.
True enough Capitalism isn’t necessarily designed to be fair; as a matter of fact it rarely is… generally the affluent rule. However, our society must allow for opportunity. “Equal” opportunity? Well that’s perhaps a matter of semantics. Peon Agent seems to be arguing that our Government has too much control over its citizens… a compelling argument and well articulated.
Intellectually, it wouldn’t seem to be such a difficult task for our Government to police greed without getting in the way of an open and free market, but historically it’s been a very fine line indeed. Each ideology of a particular political party, when in power, seems to tip the scale one way of the other. Perhaps it’s impossible balancing act. The laissez-faire agenda of our most recent Administration (which incidentally was promulgated by the Democratic majority the last two-years) is now being reigned in by the heavy-handed federalist agenda of our current Administration.
Interestingly, the middle-class has been left largely unaffected by the last several Administrations. Actually the overall wealth of the middle-class has increased significantly in the last 40-years. I’m assuming must who read this would fit into that class. Is anyone here feeling the affects of the recent downturn? Just curious.
Where do you get your facts? Adjusted for inflation the middle class makes less money now than it did in 1973.
Other than needing an editor for my prior post (I apologize for the glaring grammatical errors) I actually looked up the US Census Bureau website. Here take a look –
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f07ar.html
I understand that this is just raw data, but the median income has generally increased over the years even when accounting for inflation. True, when compared to the raise in GDP during this same period the median income should have been much higher. No doubt, the rich got richer.
There a lot of increased expenses that arent even figured in to inflation as you may know.
So really, the middle class makes less now than it did in the early 1970’s.
KPMG screwed up, just like a ton of organizations that got pulled into this sub-prime quagmire. However, neither the congress, nor the media wants to talk about the fact that Janet Reno, under the direction of Bill Clinton, was the start of all this sh!t when she sued Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac to FORCE them to make crappy loans to people who wouldn’t have qualified. In other words, make business decisions that were otherwise indefensible. Do businesses like to risk their capital on losers that won’t repay loans? No, but when Uncle Sam says you must and makes it ok…well then everyone and their uncle will be falling over themselves to beat the competing lender to the next bad loan. What a freaking mess. Sack the congress, sack President B.O. and get some people in there that understand business and risk. Elect more insurance veterans!!