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San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Sorry for the incomplete sentence....meant to say: "Just as the Pentagon is the tool of major industry in crossing borders to secure more resources and cheap labor, the mass media messaging is similarly in tow."— May 29, 2010 3:43 p.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Response to #45. Don, as I see it, not likely. Once the mega-powers set their sights on the media, they devoured and consolidated the airwaves. It was 'game on'...or 'game over'... depending on your point of view. The elimination of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan/Bush and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ushered in under the Gingrich era were the media (and journalism) game changers. Again, millions of dollars spent in lobbying Congress to change 68 years of settled regulation. As stated earlier, change can be good or bad, depending on who wins and who loses. If they wanted to lift ownership caps, they should have tried this in 10-20% increments and measured the results. I heard former CBS newsman, Roger Mudd, speak here a few years ago. Sadly, CBS is down to 2 foreign news bureaus...London and Baghdad. There was a large, media frenzy over the exposure of Janet Jackson's nipple to the exclusion of the types of massive fraud that you and Mr Lerach have battled in your respective careers. Just as the Pentagon is the tool of major industry in crossing borders to secure more resources and cheap labor, the mass media messaging. I'd say we have larger, more sophisticated, and more potentially dangerous 'robber barons' now (with respect to our economy) than in the late 19th/early 20th Century. The Great Depression was the great leveler. I'll stop there.— May 29, 2010 2:56 p.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
I wish Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt were around today. They would be extremely busy. There were fearless and had guts. We now have oil/energy trusts, healthcare trusts, banking/finance trusts, agriculture/food trusts, transportation trusts, defense trusts, media trusts, high tech trusts, and then some. In the big picture, these are the mega-powers that need scrutiny and regulation. How much "wal-mart" can an economy tolerate? The terms "worker's rights" and "labor rights" have been demonized. How many small businesses have to perish? How many journalists have to be fired before we realize that the enormous concentration of influence and power can create more social and political issues than it has solved? In any case, as these powers go more transnational, we are now witnessing the 'great downsizing' of America while the top 1% gained and will gain greater wealth. In 50 or 60 years, we have morphed into something vastly different...more akin to a plutocracy or oligopoly. Simon Johnson says no bank should control more than $100 billion in assets. We've taken 'too big to fail' entities and allowed them to get bigger. I'd say we need more class actions, not less.— May 29, 2010 10:05 a.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Don ... Agreed. A stronger SEC (which may not ever happen)... stronger penalties against insider trading...civil and criminal consequences for crimes in the suites. All very much needed. In light of everything above and your revised outlook embracing financial regulation, I'd have to say you and Mr Lerach are probably very much in accord. I consider you both crusaders against corporate fraud so I was a bit surprised that your article on him was a bit on the negative and heavy-handed side. At a recent event at the USD Law School, he stated that at least 75% of his cases involved insider trading. You have to admire the fact that he's taken on gargantuan foes and fought in places where most fear to tread. From the KPBS interview, add'l compensation given to a lead plaintiff is fine if approved by a judge post-settlement or post-judgment. Not so, if done before. And I'm willing to bet that this is probably goes on in legal practice more than we realize. Naturally Wall St wanted to criminalize 'bonus payments'. They wanted to get rid of class action suits to the greatest extent possible. And to a very good degree, they have. It sounded to me that if Mr Lerach was guilty of anything, it was overzealousness. According to Dillon's book, he did recover approx. $45 billion on behalf of defrauded shareholders in his career. He must have some grateful fans out there. He predicted today's Wall St mess while testifying before Congress in 1995. I commend the Wikipedia entry on his life and career. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lerach— May 28, 2010 2:18 p.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Don, for some reason, the above link didn't work...try this... http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/w…— May 28, 2010 9:18 a.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Comment on #23. Don, you make a very good point about the Fed helping to fuel the real estate bubble by driving interest rate low and lower. I recall how gasoline was over $4 a gallon at the pump. The speculators in the oil futures market were flaring. There were hearings in Congress re: the de-regulated futures trading rules and I'm not sure what, if anything, came of it. Wasn't it interesting that gas prices were going wild as interest rates went lower. Why wasn't there much inflation in other goods and services? It smacked of a rigged market, don't you agree? I would have liked to have seen a class action suit on behalf of consumers then. The oil-soaked Bush govt certainly going to help. Greenspan was a very big tool in driving the housing bubble. But then you had the flood of subprime loans and the bundling of garbage which was peddled as a security that was garbage. So whether Greenspan was a knowing or unintentional participant, it resulted a global trillion dollar fraud. I think Greenspan was bullied into keeping rates low. He didn't do so in the early 90s and it probably was one more reason Bush I was not re-elected. The bully son would have none of it, whose main legacy was an administration that was fueled on fear and intimidation. The Wall St crowd is a much smaller club than it was in yesteryear. The 1-per centers are now a much cozier club. Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson has warned of the rise of the financial oligarchs. They've overtaken the SEC, Congress and the regulatory agencies. It's not the foxes guarding the hen house...the foxes have devoured most of the hens. We're all now victims of their excesses. And, if we're waiting for the govt to take on Wall St fraud in any serious way, let's not hold our breath. You saw the recent hearings with the Goldman Sachs folks. If Lerach had hubris, his was a headcold compared to the ego-cancer running thru Wall St. I'd think that an active plaintiff bar with attorneys like Lerach bringing or threatening a private lawsuit will always be a better check and balance in dealing with stock and accounting manipulation, fraudulent financial statements, conversion, embezzlement, deceit and greed in taking on multi-billion dollar, transnational corporations. I hope there are others willing to take them on; but I fear there are very few in the legal field who are willing and able to battle these giants and their stables of corporate attorneys in any real way. Plus the laws are now heavily rigged in Wall St's favor. Maybe CEOs would settle quickly because they wanted a quick end to negative exposure of their fraud. Maybe they didn't want to miss their tee times. After all, it's easier to be negligent, flagrant and lazy with other people's money. In spite of it all, the wealthy have become enormously wealthier, which would be another good article for you. See www.sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/weal…— May 28, 2010 9:01 a.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Surfpuppy... agreed. there were a series of suits... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal#Afterm… after Enron was bankrupt and claims had been pursued and exhausted, Lerach led the team that sued several financial instutitions, et al to recover the $7.2 billion (which is what I was referring to) ... it was a $40 billion suit and the recovery should have actually been at least double. Conservative appellate judges thwarted that. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/… I don't know how on earth the Enron corporate officers could have blown through this kind of money... Enron's shareholders lost $74 billion in the four years before the company's bankruptcy ($40 to $45 billion was attributed to fraud).[145] As Enron had nearly $67 billion that it owed creditors, employees and shareholders received limited, if any, assistance aside from severance from Enron.[146] To pay its creditors, Enron held auctions to sell its assets including art, photographs, logo signs, and its pipelines.[147][148][149] More than 20,000 of Enron's former employees in May 2004 won a suit of $85 million for compensation of $2 billion that was lost from their pensions. From the settlement, the employees each received about $3,100 each.[150] The following year, investors received another settlement from several banks of $4.2 billion.[145] In September 2008, a $7.2-billion settlement from a $40-billion lawsuit, was reached on behalf of the shareholders. The settlement was distributed among the lead plaintiff, University of California (UC), and 1.5 million individuals and groups.— May 27, 2010 1:21 p.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Visduh ... one has to look at the origins of the regulations in the first place...and the actual, ultimate legislative effect and economic impact. I'm all in favor of creating and maintaining bona fide free markets and corporate accountability and good governance in every sector via legislation (and even then, its efficacy will likely vary depending on the industry). Other jurists have noted that we can't legislate morality, which includes the ethical handling of corporate funds. The ICC was likely conceived in cronyism and made to operate for the benefit of a few. I am not naive enough to say all regulation or deregulation is good. You have to analyze the motivation, the forces behind it, the goals and the economic results. But to stay on point....we had a wave of de-regulations in the financial sector in the 1980s and 1990s. To be sure, these de-regs didn't happen by chance and cost several million in lobbying dollars to get thru Congress....you have seen the bubbles and the bursts...and we are where we are.— May 27, 2010 12:49 p.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Response to #16: Don ... I agree with you that 1980 was a threshhold year and seminal point in our history. Under Reagan/Bush I we had a flurry of merger/acquisition mania. We had the "Wal-Marting" of America. 81 media owners were gobbled up and today we have 5 media monoliths. Look how 6 banking interests now control about 60% of our GDP. We have oligopolies and transnational corporate giants that now dominate every major economic sector...Big Oil/Energy, Big Agriculture, Big Media/News/Entertainment, Big Finance, Big Pharma/Medicine, Big Defense, Big Transportation, Big Retail/Wal-Mart and of course, Big Lobbying. The Gingrich "Contract with America" was really a "Contract ON America". Why have words like "antitrust" and "consumerism" gone out of the American vocabulary? Because the powers that be wanted them to. Then you have 'public servants' like Cheney and Rumsfeld leaving the public sector with fortunes of $100 million and $200 million, respectively. We can only imagine what the Bush dynasty is worth. This was the result of too much wealth and influence getting into too few hands. 1% of the US population owns 90% of the all the stocks and bonds. In 30 years, our economic landscape has been radically transformed as the middle class, that was built after WWII is in the process of getting dismantled. And I'd have to say the rightwing, big money interests are mostly responsible. So the advent of all the de-regulations (Clinton's veto of the "Get Lerach Act" was over-ridden by the Gingrich Congress) should have come as no surprise. I am glad that you admit your error in advocating de-regulations. The Gingrich Congress should have maintained the higher standards that were in place re: corporate financial reporting even if they wanted to curtail the filing of shareholder fraud suits. The result of removing many of the safeguards instituted by FDR has been catastrophic. But greed and corruption overtook any moral considerations...to the point where we started 2 needless wars that are sucking hundreds of billions out of our treasury and economy. In the big picture, if Mr Lerach and other class action attorneys brought fraud suits that helped bring some accountability to the corporate suites and boardrooms, then good for them. Fraud drove the huge internet/stock bubble, which eventually burst...then the same happened in the mortgage/RE/related securities bubble, which resulted in an even larger debacle...and we just finished with the junk bonds/S&L scandal of the late 80s. It's too bad that the threat of a class action fraud suit could not have prevented the collapse of a corporation like Enron, the 7th largest in the US at the time. Let's keep in mind that Lerach didn't sue Enron..they were gone. Lerach sued all the banking, accounting and legal interests that were complicit in the Enron fraud. That debacle destroyed the jobs and retirement funds of over 22,000 workers while those at the top raped the company.— May 27, 2010 10:31 a.m.
San Diegan Bill Lerach out of prison, living in luxury
Response to post #6. In my view, the great majority of the de-regulations re: the financial industry came about because Wall Street wanted less accountability and more autonomy. This de-regulatory legislation just didn't fall out of the sky. Wall St. paid hundreds of millions of dollars and greased the wheels of Congress for these laws to pass. Not only the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act aka the "Get Lerach Act" of 1995, but also the Financial Modernization Act of 2000 and the others de-regulating the futures trading market. The passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act was literally a license to steal for every corporate officer in the land. It removed liability for publishing fraudulent financial statements upon which investors relied. It gave rise to the massive fraud perpetrated by Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, AOL Time Warner, and on and on. It gave rise to the CDOs and the trillions of catastrophic securities that have been peddled globally. The Wall St powers wanted this and they wanted Lerach gone. They got their wish and now we are in a world of hurt.— May 27, 2010 1:50 a.m.