The highest paid executives of the largest US corporations continue to be exposed on a daily basis for having been involved in questionable or outright criminal activities that are robbing billions of dollars from small investors and their own employees. Collectively these activities are dragging down the stock market, adding to our national debt and decreasing the value of the dollar.

The intricate activities of these US business criminals and their enablers are chronicled in detail every day in the Business Section of the New York Times and to, a lesser extent, The Wall Street Journal. The brazen, shameless greed of these executives is staggering, as are the enormous sums of money tossed around and seemingly pocketed with little fear of detection, embarrassment or punishment.

For example, on June 15, Tyco International, a huge conglomerate sued its former lead council and a former, supposedly "independent," board director, charging they wrongfully took millions of dollars from the company.

The chief council was charged with conspiring with the former CEO in accepting an improper $20 million payment, and a $14.9 million no-interest loan from a fund for employee moving expenses. The money was used to buy a vacation home in Utah. The board director got a $20 million finders fee from the CEO for encouraging a merger.

The former CEO is currently under indictment for NY City sales tax evasion on multi-million dollar art purchases for his New York apartment. Doubtless there will be other charges forthcoming. He sold some $300 million in stock before a price crash which saw the company's equity value reduced by $76 billion (a loss of 65%) in April 2002 due to poor performance and dissatisfaction with the rich pay packages of top executives.

Tyco, was once one of the 20 largest companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It makes a wide variety of electronics products from security systems to telecommunications systems. It was one of the first of a growing number of corporations to incorporate in Bermuda, something allowable under current law, which saved the company an estimated $400 million in taxes in 2001.

Another example: the Times recently published a table listing the cash payments made to top Enron executives in 2001, prior its filing for bankruptcy. About 100 executives and energy traders received more than $300 million in cash bonuses, with Kenneth Lay the CEO and personal friend of President Bush receiving $103,559,793.00! One assumes he didn't pay for many extras, like his car, his chauffeur, his family's medical care etc. Lay headed the Bush-Cheney transition team that cleared top appointments to federal regulatory agencies and the judiciary.

While there may be some justification for a bankrupt corporation to pay bonuses to important personnel to keep them form leaving, in the case of Enron, large bonuses were paid to executives in the trading and broadband divisions, both of which did not make "real" profits and were mainly responsible for the corporation's desperate situation. Such bonuses can also be viewed as an incentive, a "pay off" to keep quiet. There was suspicion and concern that some of the bonus money was not reported to the IRS and might have been sheltered "off shore" in Bermuda and Trinidad. Will Attorney General John Ashcroft who was favored with large donations from Enron while he as a Senator follow the money trail?

The case of Global Crossing,, the second largest bankruptcy in US history after Enron, is by now, well known. It's current CEO once testified under immunity (i.e. he made a deal) for the government against Michael Milken, the so called "Junk Bond King" who was convicted and served time in prison for insider trading. Recently that CEO made a reported $734 million from stock sales which were made after his company's troubles should have been apparent. The elder George Bush received $14 million in stock options for having made two speeches for Global Crossing. He and his wife are believed to have realized a profit of $4.5 million in the sale of that stock.

On June 21, federal charges were brought against three former and one current executive of Rite Aid, the nation's third largest drug store chain, for securities and accounting fraud which led to a restatement earnings of $1,600,000,000.00-the largest accounting "error" ever acknowledged. It seems likely that additional criminal charges will follow. And, since government prosecutors in this case are filing criminal charges for deceptive earnings statements, it could mean that similar criminal charges might be filed in other cases like, Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing and Adelphia, another huge firm looted by top executives.

There does not seem to be one major auditing firm that is not in serious financial difficulty of one type or another for "aggressive accounting," leading to civil suits, criminal charges or huge civil settlements. The accounting firm of Arthur Anderson, Enron's auditor has been found guilty of criminal conduct in Houston and that should mean the end of Anderson. The Times recently reported that BDO Seidman, an accounting firm seeking to hire ex Anderson executives to capitalize on Anderson's failure-i.e. "pick its corpse"-has troubles of it's own.

BDO recently agreed to pay a fine of $16 million to settle criminal charges that it did not report that a client it audited, a financial advisor, had misappropriated $65 million from his clients. The advisor promised to invest money from 22 clients in tax free bonds, but instead bought a grocery store chain which failed. The advisor fled the country but was arrested on his yacht off the coast of Belize and is now in federal prison. The Times provided information on only two of the 22 victims, one a widow, a mother of three children who lost $500,000.00 from her insurance settlement in the wrongful death of her husband, a construction worker; and a couple who lost two thirds of their settlement with a hospital in a medical malpractice suit involving their infant son who requires special home care.

The pain and suffering caused by US business criminals, is not usually apparent, is easy to ignore and is hard to estimate and imagine. How can anyone swindle a widow and orphans? The stock market, upon which so many Americans, wisely or unwisely depend, keeps going down from lack of confidence in the government's ability to do anything about and corporate crime and accounting scandals.

The value of the US dollar has dropped to an all time low against the euro and the yen, apparently for reasons similar to those affecting the stock market. A weakening dollar makes foreign investors nervous and it is feared by financial experts that a sharp decline in the dollar might lead to its collapse by causing a sell off "...as everybody tries to get out the door at the same time." Analysts hope for a "soft landing" and an "orderly decline" in the dollar, but ... who knows?

The US economy depends on foreign investment money to finance our enormous negative trade balance-that is, as a nation, we spend more than we earn. "Private foreign purchases of American securities ran at an annual pace of $260 billion for the first quarter of this year compared to $400 billion for last year, a 35% decline," according to the Times. A run on the dollar could have dire consequences for the world economy.

It is difficult to have much confidence in our government to regulate business, let alone punish business criminals and deter their type of crimes. Regulation has been in disrepute since the Reagan administration twenty years ago, and "deregulation"-despite the disastrous effect it had on Californians and the economy of California in 2001-is still preached as the only acceptable "religion" of modern capitalism.

The top levels of the present Republican administration seem to be more highly contaminated by contact with troubled corporations- the previously mentioned Bush presidents and Dick Cheney to name only three. As CEO of the gigantic defense industry conglomerate Halliburton, Cheney initiated the "aggressive accounting" techniques used to falsely overstate earnings and drive up the corporation's stock price. Cheney appeared in a 1997 video promoting the now criminally convicted Arthur Anderson firm. He does not seem to have acted much differently than those CEOs in so much trouble now.

Harvey Pitt was appointed by the Bush administration to head the SEC. What, you may ask is the SEC? The home page of the SEC states "The primary mission of the US Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors and maintain the integrity of the securities markets. As more and more first-time investors turn to the markets to help secure their futures, pay for homes, and send children to college, these goals are more compelling than ever."

Mr. Pitt was the attorney that represented Arthur Anderson in it's attempts to prevent more stringent regulation by the Clinton SEC. Pitt once represented Ivan Boesky, another famous business criminal. The Bush administration appointed two SEC commissioners who were associated with directly with Anderson. Pitt is now pushing for a "Public Accountability Board" composed of members from the "private sector," a type of oversight that has failed miserably. It looks like he will get his way. Is it any wonder that investors don't have confidence that the stock market is rigged?

Rudolph Guiliani, the former Republican Mayor of Manhattan, rose to fame prosecuting Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky.

In regard to the present crisis in corporate management and it's effect on the stock market, president Bush has commented with vague, folksy, back country clichŽs, "There are always a few bad apples," and "Corporate America has to clean up its act." This seems to indicate that the problems is with a few, isolated individuals, and that corporate America is capable of cleansing itself unaided. That is, no structural or systemic change is necessary, the current line of the apologists for business criminals and Roman Catholic apologists for perverts in the Rectories and Seminaries.

The "bad apple" clichŽ is itself a corruption and complete distortion of an old proverb, "One bad apple in a barrel spoils them all." It means that corruption, once started spreads rapidly to those near the source. It is an urgent call for action to remove, to isolate, to get rid of "bad apples," to protect the good ones. This proverb is a dangerous one, but it seems apt for those who steal from widows and orphans, sour the lives of the elderly retired, and those who put their trust in "the system," the "barrel" so to speak.