# "Bush is a crook" says Mr. Krugman **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 2, 2002, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087 "2002-07-02T19:33:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/361 "2002-07-15T18:02:54Z")
The pain… the pain… ::whimper:: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/362 "2002-07-15T18:26:48Z")
Of late note: CNN reports that Orrin Hatch, that wild-eyed radical from Utah, has come out for the release of all documents. Oh, if only I could have been there to see the look on Trent Lott’s face! ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/363 "2002-07-15T20:14:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > \*\*Well, **Elvis** , I think the argument is that the market _did_ correct the excesses of Enron and WorldCom. We’re just having to pay a rather stiff bill for that correction… \*\* To wit… [This weeks This Modern World](http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/07/15/tomo/index.html) > [@](#): > > These scandals are proof that the _system works!_ > > Of course, if no-one had ever been caught, that would _also_ be proof that the system works… > > Ahem! Moving right along… Heh. I love Tom Tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/364 "2002-07-15T20:16:03Z")
Sorry, bad formatting. grr @ Extra quote. [This Modern World](http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/07/15/tomo/index.html) That should do it. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/365 "2002-07-15T20:29:35Z")
It’s all Bill Clinton’s fault! > [@](#): > > If not for the atmosphere of permisiveness fostered by his sexual misconduct, none of this would have ever happened! Why didn’t I think of that? ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2002, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/366 "2002-07-15T20:46:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*It’s all Bill Clinton’s fault! > > Why didn’t I think of that? \*\* You wouldn’t be the first if you had… it’s an argument I’ve heard bandied about seriously ever since Enron, in certain circles. :rolleyes: Funny, the ones who hate Clinton the most are those who can’t seem to stop talking about him. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/367 "2002-07-17T01:07:50Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by **Scylla** :_ > > > [@](#): > > > > He could talk about the Aloha deal, and how it was a product of a corporate culture which encouraged the personal enrichment of executives over responsibility to the coroporation. > > That’s not true. It’s really not. There are thousands of publicly traded corportations. We’re having scandals with a handful. There are lots of good responsible CEOs and managers out there who run the ship as they should, and it’s an unfair characterization of this majority. Well, apparently there’s another person of little consequence who agrees that venality has been systematically encouraged over the last half decade: > [@](#): > > _from Alan Greenspan’s [testimony](http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/2002/july/testimony.htm) to Congress, July 16, 2002:_ > Why did corporate governance checks and balances that served us reasonably well in the past break down? At root was the rapid enlargement of stock market capitalizations in the latter part of the 1990s that arguably engendered an outsized increase in opportunities for avarice. **An infectious greed seemed to grip much of our business community**. Our historical guardians of financial information were overwhelmed. Too many corporate executives sought ways to “harvest” some of those stock market gains. As a result, the highly desirable spread of shareholding and options among business managers **perversely created incentives to artificially inflate reported earnings** in order to keep stock prices high and rising. This outcome suggests that the options were poorly structured, and, consequently, they failed to properly align the long-term interests of shareholders and managers, the paradigm so essential for effective corporate governance. **The incentives they created overcame the good judgment of too many corporate managers.** It is not that humans have become any more greedy than in generations past. It is that the avenues to express greed had grown so enormously. (Bolding added for emphasis.) Alan Greenspan. Just another teary-eyed liberal like me… ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/368 "2002-07-17T01:13:12Z")
(Of course, Harken’s wheelin’-dealin’ happened 13 years ago. Could George Bush and cronies actually have been _ahead_ of the curve on something?!) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/369 "2002-07-17T01:18:18Z")
Yeah, I watched Greenspan’s testimony. I’m trying to figure out what in that quote you show rebuts anything I said. Or, are you just looking for trouble, boy? 'Cuz if you’re looking for trouble, I’ll be in Houston tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/370 "2002-07-17T01:28:24Z")
Houston, we have a… Well, forgive me, **Scylla**. I thought when you said “That’s not true” to my characterization of the Aloha deal as symptomatic of a culture that encouraged greed over responsibility to shareholders, you were _disagreeing with me_. It’s nice to know that by “not true” you meant “you got that right, xeno.” It makes me feel all warm and cuddly now about most of our board exchanges! BTW, enjoy Houston, but try and keep yourself, Mrs. Scylla and Scylladaughter inside as much as possible. (Houston in July… they _are_ trying to kill you.) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/371 "2002-07-17T01:51:07Z")
Xeno: Ahhh, I’m confused. Silly me did not see the clear and obvious parrellel between stock options offered to Corporate CEOs in the late 90s and the Aloha transaction 13 years ago at Harkens. In fact, I still don’t see it. Nor do I see how the latter led to the former or was somehow symptomatic of it. Nor was I aware that Bush was CEO at Harkens. Pray explain this to me with all haste so that I do not go to die in Houston an ignorant man. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/372 "2002-07-17T01:54:13Z")
Got ten bucks sez its his inlaws. Takers? 'Cause generally Texans don’t start in trying to kill somebody till they are at least on a first name basis. This proscription usually includes Yankees. But I wouldn’t test that needlessly. Born and raised in Waco, myself. Quiet little town, you never heard of it, nothing ever happens there. As I recall, Austin was for professors and queers and Houston was mostly the violent ward. Odessa was for people who just couldn’t **get** anywhere else. Midland, where Jr. is from, is Texas’ first gated community. Don’t let the sun set on your head in Midland, less’n you carrying _at least_ a gold card. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/373 "2002-07-17T02:10:19Z")
> [@](#): > > In fact, I still don’t see it. Nor do I see how the latter led to the former or was somehow symptomatic of it. Nor was I aware that Bush was CEO at Harkens. > > Pray explain this to me with all haste so that I do not go to die in Houston an ignorant man. Good lord. You expect to actually misdirect people so obviously? Silly me, I didn’t realize it was **only CEO’s** who got stock options, and that only CEO’s and not any other corporate execs could possibly have succumbed to temptation over these incentives which of course **were nonexistent** before 1995 or so. Yes, it’s easy to see how you got so confused. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/374 "2002-07-17T02:53:06Z")
elucidator: Scary insight. You are correct. Xeno: So Bush got a bunch of stock options, and he manipulated the stock higher and then bailed at the last sec, thus paving the way for countless corporate execs to do the same? Personally, I like the new permissiveness propogated by Clinton’s sexual misconduct scenario better as a blame tool. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/375 "2002-07-17T12:12:30Z")
**Scylla** , that’s an interesting tactic. Restate my assertion regarding what the Aloha deal illustrates about the corporate culture into some sort of specific charge against Bush, and then ridicule the restatement. (Hmmm… that sounds like something I’ve seen once or twice on the internet. Something about a man constructed of late-harvested hay or something… I’d be able to think of it if I had a brain, I guess.) I’ll restate this subtopic for you so that you can understand what was actually asserted, denied, and later supported. But first, just for grins, let me correct an apparent misapprehension of yours. _You can’t “refute” an opinion._ My Greenspan quote was not offered as an argument from authority. In fact, my bald assertion about the corporate culture wasn’t supported by an argument at all; it was an opinion. You disagreed with my opinion, so I offered a corroborating opinion in the form of a very recent direct quote from the Chairman of the Fed. I leave it to others to choose on whose opinion they wish to place greater value. Since I happen to agree with Greenspan’s remarks --or rather, Greenspan seems to have said something remarkably similar to my earlier assertion-- I feel reasonably comfortable with the validity of my own opinion. Now, to parse my assertion for you: “The Aloha deal was the product of a corporate culture which encouraged the personal enrichment of executives over [their] responsibility to the corporation.” Notice that the assertion makes absolutely no claims about Bush’s role at Harken or whether he planned or produced the Aloha deal rather than just signing off on it. Notice further that the subject of the second clause is “corporate culture”, not Citizen Bush. Greenspan’s language (see quote above): Notice how Greenspan talks about “corporate executives”, “business managers” and “corporate managers” as having contracted the “infectious greed” carried by shareholding options offered to them. His remarks in the quoted paragraph are not limited to CEO’s. While he places the time frame for this business epidemic in the “latter part of the 1990’s”, both the symptoms (executive avarice, artifices designed to falsely inflate stock prices) and the suspected causes (incentives which enabled and encouraged such avarice and artifice, inadequate checks and balances) existed at Harken and many other corporations at least as early as 1989. Is it becoming any clearer for you? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/376 "2002-07-17T12:35:25Z")
**xeno** > [@](#): > > …these incentives which of course were nonexistent before 1995 or so. > [@](#): > > His remarks in the quoted paragraph are not limited to CEO’s. While he places the time frame for this business epidemic in the “latter part of the 1990’s”, both the symptoms (executive avarice, artifices designed to falsely inflate stock prices) and the suspected causes (incentives which enabled and encouraged such avarice and artifice, inadequate checks and balances) existed at Harken and many other corporations at least as early as 1989. So even you see you’re talking about two different things. Glad we’re on track. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/377 "2002-07-17T12:49:13Z")
**erislover** , what part of my previous post did you not understand? The part about the symptoms, or the part about the causes? Or did you not get the BLAZINGLY OBVIOUS SARCASM in my statement “nonexistent before 1995”? Or are you a recent convert to sophistry? Or am I (please, please) being whooshed? I’d hate to think you were serious. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/378 "2002-07-17T13:17:03Z")
Xeno: Yes, I see what you want to say. However, it is tough to honestly say what motivated the Aloha debacle. It could have been simple fear, or greed, or just somebody with a really bad idea. I lend towards fear myself (The executive committee trying to cover up losses.) In any event a certain degree of greed is a key component to business. We work to enrich ourselves. BTW: It wasn’t a straw man. I don’t do that. I use a nice alfalfa/timothy hay mix. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/379 "2002-07-17T13:18:31Z")
xeno: And I think your invoking Greenspan in this particular circumstance is worthy of a little ridicule. It’s quite a reach. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2002, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087/380 "2002-07-17T13:29:31Z")
Alfalfa! That’s why its little head had a spike sticking out of it! I agree that desire for improvement (not necessarily _greed_) is a key component of business. I think, and Greenspan seems to agree, that any personal greed of the executives has to be harnassed to work for the stock holders, and that the business world has not done an adequate job overall of assuring that. And I get your point about fear at Harken being a possible motivation for Aloha. That’s plausible. I lean toward the avarice theory because I doubt the fear factor was that high; I don’t believe the Harken execs were ever in personal fear for their financial wellbeing. I admit I could be wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-a-crook-says-mr-krugman/117087.md?page=20)