Yeah they were vague, and in legal terms that means highly novel and expansive. The idea that is no big deal is ludicrous. As many and the Chamber of Commerce noted in "friend of the court" briefs said on if this novel "vague" basis stood, routine business policies on discarding documents would be seen as criminal. The Washington Legal Foundation called the Supreme Court decision "a stinging rebuke to the DOJ for its abusive prosecutorial conduct." A stinging rebuke to the Enron Task Force. Standard document retention policies as regards shredding were adhered to until Enron was served with subpoena, and then all document destruction stopped. Document destruction is normal policy and is approved by a firms legal team in any business. In fact, the jury was close to a deadlock when a holdout was persuaded that an AA lawyer's memo amounted to obstruction of justice. So yeah, being "vague" with the law is an egregious breach of trust in this case. At issue was the very same thing that the DOJ now engages in, and has been struck down by SCOTUS again. Namely, that "impeding" an official proceeding, even innocently and unknowingly, under this vague guidance, could constitute obstruction of justice. Hit a pole outside a courthouse with your car and kill the power? Yep, you've just obstructed justice. It's absurd. The DOJ is weaponized against whomever it doesn't like for any reason.
--- the jury was told that, “even if [petitioner] honestly and sincerely believed that its conduct was lawful, you may find [petitioner] guilty.” App. JA—213. The instructions also diluted the meaning of “corruptly” so that it covered innocent conduct. Id., at JA—212. ... These changes were significant. No longer was any type of “dishonest[y]” necessary to a finding of guilt, and it was enough for petitioner to have simply “impede[d]” the Government’s factfinding ability. As the Government conceded at oral argument, “ ‘impede’ ” has broader connotations than “ ‘subvert’ ” or even “ ‘undermine,’ ” see Tr. of Oral Arg. 38, and many of these connotations do not incorporate any “corrupt[ness]” at all. The instructions also were infirm for another reason. They led the jury to believe that it did not have to find any nexus between the “persua[sion]” to destroy documents and any particular proceeding.10 In resisting any type of nexus element, the Government relies heavily on §1512(e)(1), which states that an official proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense.” It is, however, one thing to say that a proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense,” and quite another to say a proceeding need not even be foreseen. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-368.ZO.html
Don't buy the naive view on Enron and Arthur Anderson as presented by Grossman. Many diligent people could see that all was not well with Enron as an investment. The non-diligent investing on faith lost their money. Go figure. He's just repeating a conventional wisdom that is deeply flawed. See my earlier comments. Better yet, read a more full account in the book "Three Felonies a Day."
The conventional wisdom about Enron and Arthur Anderson is deeply flawed. In fact, business school students who examined the company well in advance of their implosion concluded it was not a good investment based on the public numbers. In fact people who actually looked at the numbers would know. Famously, Fayez Sarofim wouldn’t buy Enron because he couldn’t make sense of the balance sheet. No one could. People bought it on faith that it would keep going up. Moreover, you cannot trust Investopedia to have good history on such things. It is false that "Arthur Andersen legal counsel tells auditors to destroy all Enron files, except Enron's most basic documents." Completely false. Which is why SCOTUS flatly threw out the AA conviction. But it was too late, and the company was destroyed. Who was behind the prosecution of the case?Robert Mueller - FBI director Andrew Weismann - Enron task force
Michael Chertoff - Enron task force Do you recognize those names? The same idiots who spent millions of public dollars fanning the flames of the Russiagate scandal, which turned up nothing. The modus operandi was the same. Try people in the court of public opinion, bag some heads, and damn the legal issues or consequences. Look, it is sad that so many people lost their savings. But to go from that to the idea that someone must pay for people buying what they didn't understand set a dangerous precedent. Anderson was exonerated by SCOTUS because they did NOT order the destruction of documents. ALL companies –all companies– have document destruction polices, and must and should. You can't keep them forever. These polices can be overridden by court order for the purpose of discovery. If it is the policy to destroy documents at 1 year, and a lawsuit happens a court may say no documents may be destroyed until the case is resolved. But what Mueller and Weisman did was come in and claim the standard document destruction policy was an attempt to fool the court and the FBI loudly told the public that is was illegal and malicious. That was NOT true, and that is why SCOTUS threw the case out. AA did not violate the law on document destruction. Not in any way. But Mueller and Weisman got their narrative met, and it still lives on in the naive to this day. Maybe Humble dollar can do better than to repeat falsehoods, no matter how entrenched they may be in the public mind?
T top stocks in the S&P 500 have always resented a disproportionate share of the overall market. It has always been this way. In fact if you go back before the 80's the concentration, despite the oft repeated mantra, it was higher. AT&T itself was 13% of the index in the 30s. IBM was about where Apple was until recently –if not still– at 7%. And GM and AT&T in the 50s? That was some ridiculous percent of the market. Earnings drive valuation, the same as it ever was. Also see the piece "200 Years of Market Concentration" by Bryan Taylor, Chief Economist at Global Financial Data.
The top 5 account for around 30% of the overall index, but this isn't as unusual as we've been told. If you look beyond the 30 year time horizon of those trying to scare us, you'll find the market was even more concentrated in the past. At one time AT&T alone was 13% of the market. See "200 years of market concentration" by Bryan Taylor. https://globalfinancialdata.com/200-years-of-market-concentration
He said that expertise can help tilt the odds in one's favor, not that it necessarily would. There are no guarantees. As with everything else in life, you can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons. And then there is just poor judgment, which expertise helps not at all. Still it is true that expertise can under the right conditions tilt the odds in one's favor. Saying "any expertise-based advantage that may have existed in the past no longer does" sounds like a belief in "efficient markets", is it not?
I had everything with TD-Ameritrade, and it all rolled over to Schwab last year because of the acquisition. Having a single pane to view all financial assets is great. I roll my employer 401k to IRA quarterly.
> "took most of his 401(k) $200,000 as I recall and bought a bus type RV only to find a couple of years later for several reasons it wasn’t a great move." Spent most of his 401k for an RV. Wow
Interesting. I was planning on doing a larger Roth conversion the year I retire because I'll only work 5 months of it, which is just long enough to get my 401-Roth maxed out. Could I use that excuse even if it turns out my AGI doesn't drop after retirement because I take more cap gains? Is it just a life even regardless of the consequences? I don't get it.
Comments
I'm told if you include dividends paid, the rebound from 29 took 9 years.
Post: Sharing Lessons
Link to comment from December 18, 2024
Yeah they were vague, and in legal terms that means highly novel and expansive. The idea that is no big deal is ludicrous. As many and the Chamber of Commerce noted in "friend of the court" briefs said on if this novel "vague" basis stood, routine business policies on discarding documents would be seen as criminal. The Washington Legal Foundation called the Supreme Court decision "a stinging rebuke to the DOJ for its abusive prosecutorial conduct." A stinging rebuke to the Enron Task Force. Standard document retention policies as regards shredding were adhered to until Enron was served with subpoena, and then all document destruction stopped. Document destruction is normal policy and is approved by a firms legal team in any business. In fact, the jury was close to a deadlock when a holdout was persuaded that an AA lawyer's memo amounted to obstruction of justice. So yeah, being "vague" with the law is an egregious breach of trust in this case. At issue was the very same thing that the DOJ now engages in, and has been struck down by SCOTUS again. Namely, that "impeding" an official proceeding, even innocently and unknowingly, under this vague guidance, could constitute obstruction of justice. Hit a pole outside a courthouse with your car and kill the power? Yep, you've just obstructed justice. It's absurd. The DOJ is weaponized against whomever it doesn't like for any reason. --- the jury was told that, “even if [petitioner] honestly and sincerely believed that its conduct was lawful, you may find [petitioner] guilty.” App. JA—213. The instructions also diluted the meaning of “corruptly” so that it covered innocent conduct. Id., at JA—212. ... These changes were significant. No longer was any type of “dishonest[y]” necessary to a finding of guilt, and it was enough for petitioner to have simply “impede[d]” the Government’s factfinding ability. As the Government conceded at oral argument, “ ‘impede’ ” has broader connotations than “ ‘subvert’ ” or even “ ‘undermine,’ ” see Tr. of Oral Arg. 38, and many of these connotations do not incorporate any “corrupt[ness]” at all. The instructions also were infirm for another reason. They led the jury to believe that it did not have to find any nexus between the “persua[sion]” to destroy documents and any particular proceeding.10 In resisting any type of nexus element, the Government relies heavily on §1512(e)(1), which states that an official proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense.” It is, however, one thing to say that a proceeding “need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense,” and quite another to say a proceeding need not even be foreseen. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-368.ZO.html
Post: Mob Rule
Link to comment from October 16, 2024
Don't buy the naive view on Enron and Arthur Anderson as presented by Grossman. Many diligent people could see that all was not well with Enron as an investment. The non-diligent investing on faith lost their money. Go figure. He's just repeating a conventional wisdom that is deeply flawed. See my earlier comments. Better yet, read a more full account in the book "Three Felonies a Day."
Post: Mob Rule
Link to comment from October 13, 2024
The conventional wisdom about Enron and Arthur Anderson is deeply flawed. In fact, business school students who examined the company well in advance of their implosion concluded it was not a good investment based on the public numbers. In fact people who actually looked at the numbers would know. Famously, Fayez Sarofim wouldn’t buy Enron because he couldn’t make sense of the balance sheet. No one could. People bought it on faith that it would keep going up. Moreover, you cannot trust Investopedia to have good history on such things. It is false that "Arthur Andersen legal counsel tells auditors to destroy all Enron files, except Enron's most basic documents." Completely false. Which is why SCOTUS flatly threw out the AA conviction. But it was too late, and the company was destroyed. Who was behind the prosecution of the case? Robert Mueller - FBI director Andrew Weismann - Enron task force Michael Chertoff - Enron task force Do you recognize those names? The same idiots who spent millions of public dollars fanning the flames of the Russiagate scandal, which turned up nothing. The modus operandi was the same. Try people in the court of public opinion, bag some heads, and damn the legal issues or consequences. Look, it is sad that so many people lost their savings. But to go from that to the idea that someone must pay for people buying what they didn't understand set a dangerous precedent. Anderson was exonerated by SCOTUS because they did NOT order the destruction of documents. ALL companies –all companies– have document destruction polices, and must and should. You can't keep them forever. These polices can be overridden by court order for the purpose of discovery. If it is the policy to destroy documents at 1 year, and a lawsuit happens a court may say no documents may be destroyed until the case is resolved. But what Mueller and Weisman did was come in and claim the standard document destruction policy was an attempt to fool the court and the FBI loudly told the public that is was illegal and malicious. That was NOT true, and that is why SCOTUS threw the case out. AA did not violate the law on document destruction. Not in any way. But Mueller and Weisman got their narrative met, and it still lives on in the naive to this day. Maybe Humble dollar can do better than to repeat falsehoods, no matter how entrenched they may be in the public mind?
Post: Mob Rule
Link to comment from October 13, 2024
T top stocks in the S&P 500 have always resented a disproportionate share of the overall market. It has always been this way. In fact if you go back before the 80's the concentration, despite the oft repeated mantra, it was higher. AT&T itself was 13% of the index in the 30s. IBM was about where Apple was until recently –if not still– at 7%. And GM and AT&T in the 50s? That was some ridiculous percent of the market. Earnings drive valuation, the same as it ever was. Also see the piece "200 Years of Market Concentration" by Bryan Taylor, Chief Economist at Global Financial Data.
Post: Underwater Overseas
Link to comment from October 6, 2024
The top 5 account for around 30% of the overall index, but this isn't as unusual as we've been told. If you look beyond the 30 year time horizon of those trying to scare us, you'll find the market was even more concentrated in the past. At one time AT&T alone was 13% of the market. See "200 years of market concentration" by Bryan Taylor. https://globalfinancialdata.com/200-years-of-market-concentration
Post: One Is Not Enough
Link to comment from July 24, 2024
He said that expertise can help tilt the odds in one's favor, not that it necessarily would. There are no guarantees. As with everything else in life, you can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons. And then there is just poor judgment, which expertise helps not at all. Still it is true that expertise can under the right conditions tilt the odds in one's favor. Saying "any expertise-based advantage that may have existed in the past no longer does" sounds like a belief in "efficient markets", is it not?
Post: Off the Beaten Path
Link to comment from July 14, 2024
I had everything with TD-Ameritrade, and it all rolled over to Schwab last year because of the acquisition. Having a single pane to view all financial assets is great. I roll my employer 401k to IRA quarterly.
Post: All in One Place
Link to comment from July 3, 2024
> "took most of his 401(k) $200,000 as I recall and bought a bus type RV only to find a couple of years later for several reasons it wasn’t a great move." Spent most of his 401k for an RV. Wow
Post: Playing Their Part
Link to comment from May 22, 2024
Interesting. I was planning on doing a larger Roth conversion the year I retire because I'll only work 5 months of it, which is just long enough to get my 401-Roth maxed out. Could I use that excuse even if it turns out my AGI doesn't drop after retirement because I take more cap gains? Is it just a life even regardless of the consequences? I don't get it.
Post: Paying to Avoid Pain
Link to comment from May 15, 2024