Consumers are too stupid to make good choices

[kandrathe]

I'm sure you remember the Enron debacle no? Mattel with their (real or not) ignorance of how lead paint got into some of their toys? How about whenever I crack open the business section, and read yet another CEO who underperforms, and is punished with a severence package that includes a humiliating cash prize worth millions. Hot damn, where can -I- get a job where I can fail onwards and upwards?

First, Fox wouldn't be the network for 'Ow my balls', it would definitely be E!

Enron was accounting done wrong, and so if you want to make reading 10Q's by stockholders mandatory you can avoid the Enron scandals. I remember that time, and I would say the market was screaming "buyer beware!" I divested from stocks that spring right before that whole bubble thing exploded because the entire market was insane and "too good to be true". Stocks were trading at 1000x earnings, with no possible way to become solvent in my lifetime. So, while I pity the people who were swindled and ended up with the worthless paper, it was their own fault as well.

Ah, yes, the CEO parachutes. Well, these days with the legal responsibilities of signing 10Q's and risking going to jail if they are wrong I can understand the six digit parachutes. You can give Madonna a billion dollars for singing "Like a Virgin", but you don't understand giving a CEO a few million for running a billion dollar company and employing 10,000 people? I worked for a railroad for awhile, and the first year I was there the CEO was canned for losing 10 million on a boondoggle project, and he walked away with a modest 6 figure severance. The last year I was there myself and some other people in accounting came up with a way to save the company about 10 million. I got the same profit sharing bonus that everyone other rank and file person did and I'm sure the executives got quite a bit more. They get the credit because it happened under their watch. Just like sports, the hot shot player might get some attention, but the coach gets much of the credit and the owner walks away with the profits.