Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(May 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Corruption in
high places:
 The higher echelon management of several
large companies have been accused of cooking the books
in order to make the business assets of their companies
appear to be in better shape than they really are,
thus providing the unsuspecting owners of stock in
their companies with a warm feeling that all is well
and the company is progressing favourably, whilst at
the same time the members of the board have been skimming
large amounts of money off the top and paying themselves
very extravagant bonuses and virtually running the
company into the ground.
The actions of these corrupt executives have resulted in several very large companies
going into bankruptcy which has virtually closed those companies down with the
loss of thousands of jobs and the loss of huge amounts of investment capital.
 The worst aspect of this corruption is that the employees have not only lost
their jobs but have also lost investment in the company stock plans, which many
employees opted to participate in, and have also lost their retirement benefits
and in many case the worst thing of all they have lost their company medical
benefits. A small number of these corrupt executives have been charged with fraud
but very few have yet to be tried by the courts and sentenced to the heavy prison
sentences they "richly" deserve.
Some large, and even some small company’s, have
been known to have transferred large amounts of cash
from their employee pension and health care benefits
plans back to their working capital accounts in order
to bolster their sagging profit margins and maintain
investment to keep their companies afloat.
Others have
even terminated employee benefit plans completely, leaving
many long time employees high and dry without any financial
resources or secondary health care coverage at the time
of their retirement when it is needed most.
But there
again what else is new - the federal government have
been accused of continuously dipping into the Medicare
health care program and the Social  Security retirement
program in order to fund other pet projects and then
have the audacity to project the potential failure of
such plans unless action is taken to modify such plans.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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