posted on December 10, 2002 07:32:35 PM new
'Don't know if that is the right term. The San Jose Mercury has been running articles on corporate fraud. Here's a sample.
posted on December 10, 2002 08:15:27 PM new
I agree with you twinsoft. I think it's rampant everywhere. Something happens once a company goes public. It's too easy for the high-ups to get ahold of privy information. If these criminals aren't forced to pay back their gains, it'll continue imo.
posted on December 10, 2002 08:23:52 PM new
This is the norm. The primary function of the stock market is the separation of money from idiots to smart people. If you take ebay for example, the idiots have plowed money into the stock so that it is worth hundreds of times any profit the company can make. The corporate officers given stock as compensation have from the VERY BEGINNING sold large blocks of it at their earliest oportunity. They are astute businessmen. And it's not like the stupid people haven't been told over and over again not to pay that kind of money for the stock.
posted on December 10, 2002 08:32:11 PM new
Ahahahah DeSquirrel! That's so true, but if the company's management knows this and becomes greedy, they should also know the price they'll pay is having a bankrupt company. If that's the main reason why they go public to begin with, then they become greed masters, not good business men.
It has nothing to do with bankrupting a company. Selling their stock is not going to do that. There are requirements about how long you have to hold the stock, etc. So, when the financial figures are released and eBay announces a huge growth, etc. the legions of the silly call up their brokers and say "buy me some of that good eBay stuff". Then the stock shoots up and Meg and the boys sell off a load. You should look at the insider sales and see how much Meg et al, have made doing this (hundreds of millions). I don't think there is a single thing wrong with this anymore than when you buy a widget for $1 and some idiot puts a $100 bid on it.
posted on December 10, 2002 10:45:17 PM new
Sorry, I had to edit because I didn't read your comment correctly DeSquirrel. If Meg has made money from insider trading, she's a criminal imo.
[ edited by kraftdinner on Dec 10, 2002 10:50 PM ]
posted on December 10, 2002 11:19:50 PM new
Here is a company that went public in 1999. By 2001, the president sold over 125 million dollars of his own stock. Just three years later, in 2002, the company is nearly worthless. All the warning signs are there that this company was intentionally gutted and investors cheated. This is not the American work ethic. This is hucksterism. "There's a sucker born every minute."
