Lynn C. Woolsey: “the strength of our United States economy is built on the honesty, integrity and transparency of our financial…”

“the strength of our United States economy is built on the honesty, integrity and transparency of our financial institutions. But right now the confidence of the American public and international investors is truly shaken. We must restore confidence in our economy before it is rocked any further so we can continue to attract capital investment for the future health and prosperity of our economic system. The spate of deregulation over recent years has left us with a system that benefits the powerful and the wealthy above all others. We cannot allow this to continue. Weakened Federal regulation of accounting practices has allowed corporate greed to run rampant and has led to failure of some of our very largest corporations and businesses. Enron, Global Crossing, Owens Corning, ImClone, Merrill Lynch, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, WorldCom, the list grows every single day. When these big businesses fail, thousands of employees lose their jobs and pensions while, undeservedly, many of the corporate executives become rich. They become not only millionaires, they become billionaires. These captains of industry do not stay with the sinking ship. They jump off first and with all the treasures. This is not a simple problem about a few bad apples. The problems are systemic, and the accounting practices of America must be changed so we will be able to restore our economic health.”