Greg Ganske: “I am outraged by the corporate scandals that are causing so much pain to Americans. I have listened to fellow Iowans who…”

“I am outraged by the corporate scandals that are causing so much pain to Americans. I have listened to fellow Iowans who worked for the natural gas company that merged into Enron tell me with tears in their eyes that most of their pensions were wiped out in the Enron collapse. Workers are taking it on the chin. WorldCom is laying off more than 17,000 people. Many more at other companies are legitimately worried. Besides the workers and pensioners directly affected, almost 50 percent of Americans now invest in the stock market and some are looking at their lifetime investments become pennies in a matter of days. The stories of greedy executives who cut corners to make themselves a profit at the expense of everyone else are becoming a daily occurrence. This has become such a problem that the loss of faith of investors in the capital markets threatens our Nation's security. So how did the capitalist threaten capitalism? For the CEO's victory is measured in profits to boost stock prices to enable them to cash in options. It is clear that some CEOs overaggressively pursued paper profits, even if it meant cheating the investors who provided the capital. These CEOs used various strategies to cheat others. Let me simplify their executive self-dealing. I am indebted to columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times for this example. Imagine the manager of an ice cream parlor who wants to get rich the easy way. First there is the Enron strategy.…”