Time And Tide

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. Lyndon B.Johnson

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Martha Stewart was not charged with insider trading.
She was charged with and found guilty for:

· False Statements: Stewart convicted of lying when she told the Securities and Exchange Commission, FBI and federal prosecutors she had prearranged with Bacanovic to sell ImClone when it fell below $60 per share.
· False Statements: Stewart convicted of lying when she told the SEC, FBI and prosecutors that she did not recall being told on Dec. 27, 2001, that the family of ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal was selling stock.
· Conspiracy: Stewart and Bacanovic convicted of "willfully and knowingly" working together to obstruct justice and make false statements in the stock-trading scandal.
· Obstruction Of Justice: Stewart convicted of "willfully and knowingly" trying to hamper the SEC investigation of her stock sale by providing misleading information from January to April 2002.

Most interesting to me is the fact that Peter Bacanovic was acquitted on a charge of altering a worksheet of MS's portfolio to make it look like she had arranged to sell ImClone when it fell below $60 (called a stop-loss order or a limit order). If that information was on file and she did indeed have the stop-loss order in effect, there was no basis for the first of the false statement charges against Stewart.
A broker's job is to offer help and guidance in managing investments. Our investment portfolio is no doubt much smaller than MS's and I have a hard time keeping track of what I talk to our broker about and when. I can imagine it would be doubly so for someone like MS who undoubtedly has a LOT of money invested in the market.
Given the fact that Martha's television show has been dropped by Viacom, the extreme drop in the value of her company, and the effects on her relationship with K-Mart which carried her line of home things, I'd say she's paid a price well beyond the possible penalties that the judge can hand down during sentencing.
Interesting that I don’t even care that much about Martha Stewart. I’m not a fan, but I think what’s happened has been wrong based on what I understand about law and the stock market, and broker/investor relationships. Just plain wrong.

A lot of things have been working my nerves this week. Is probably compounded by the bazillion things I’ve been doing, but is getting on my nerves nonetheless.

First there was the deal at dd’s school with the team meetings. I have yet to receive a response from any of the people at school that I contacted. They complain and complain because they feel parents aren’t involved enough and parent/teacher relations aren’t what they wish they were, but they don’t answer when parents try to communicate. I think they don’t want parental involvement at all. They are looking for parental consent to free reign by the administration. Won’t get that here. My kids are individuals, adults in the making, responsible humans. I expect them to be treated as such. All of the kids deserve to be treated fairly. Like humans. They deserve to be dealt with by people who possess the same quality character traits they say they are trying to instill in our children with character education.

There's more but then I'd be ranting on politics and religion in the same post and both are deadly. I should stop now, I guess.

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