Rule of Law and Free Market Brings Solution To Corporate Crime
by Winsip Custer CPW News Service
In the Old West, cattle rustlers were hung without benefit of a jury trial. The justice was swift, sometimes misguided, but cattle theft was thwarted by the ranchers themselves and law enforcement was enhanced by the citizen-centered justice and observance of cultural mores and traditions based in the Biblical directive..."thou shalt not steal." A small group of ranchers could directly address a misguided wealthy neighbor who was making money by taking from their smaller herds. We have always heard that competition weeds out companies from the free market by consumers shifting their allegiances. Because this shift can be much slower than the export of company jobs to other nations, the clandestine flow of money to off-shore accounts and other forms of subterfuge, a new, swifter approach to corporate weeding is being pushed by Washington free market lobbyists.
Ryman R. Friedman of the Free Market Solutions Network or FMSN, in Silver Springs, Maryland presented his organization's solution to the problem of corporate malfeasance, manipulation of markets and stock fraud that played so prominently in everything from the Savings and Loan scandal, to World Com, Tyco, Enron, AIG, and other recent examples of greed gone wild.
"The free market is always at its best when left to work on its own. The Invisible Hand of the free market is able to correct the injustices it encounters much more swiftly than the beloved, but repressive, rule of law, which we all know can be manipulated by shyster lawyers and judges who have been paid off by left wing wing nuts bent on undermining the capitalistic free market economy of the West. Milton Friedman would surely embrace less government and so do we," said Mr. Friedman, no relation to Milton.
"We are using the rule of law in asking the US Congress and Senate to embrace a bill that will give any group of stockholders the right to hang, shoot or guillotine the CEO, CFO and up to five other top ranking corporate officials who they believe to be rustling the company into bankruptcy or other forms of corporate irresponsibility. This means that a group of say, ten or fifteen people who own at least one share of stock, may, without fear of arrest or imprisonment, provide for a leadership adjustment of their choosing. Free markets today require the freedom that helped make the world the secure place that it was in the Old West," said Friedman.
"The wonderful thing about freedom is that you're free to set things right when you see a wrong. 'It was self-interest, or if you prefer, greed...the greed of producers who wanted to produce something they could make a dollar on,' said Milton Friedman, that made this country great. With that in mind, the FMSN also has attached to the bill a provision for the stockholder's of record and action, the action of removal of the corporate leaders, to be allowed to sell tickets to the executions, but tickets must not cost more than the average NFL, NBA or National League Baseball tickets," said Ryman Friedman, "and the proceeds must be shared equally among the shareholders of action, but with a double share of ticket profits going to the actual executioner."
I asked Mr. Friedman, "what if it is later proved that the leaders were free of any wrongdoing, but were executed anyway?" He said, "then the legal system steps in and handles the victim's compensation from the sale of company assets. They had a responsibility to do a good job of public relations and they were at least guilty of leading some to believe that they were incompetent. Beside, this is not only a means of keeping government small, but corporations small so that we're not having to think in terms of Sherman Anti-trust legislation or Sarbanes-Oxley bills and the like. It's also a hedge against family nepotism and interlocking directorates...especially when a similar action is necessary in a related company. That's when tickets sales could really go through the roof. In the free market of world evolution, dinosaurs got too big and died off. So, too, can mega-corporations, but it's still a free market...even freer, when the big boys can't buy off the freedom of the market with legal maneuvering that is market repressiveness in disguise. This keeps the money moving around nicely as it should in a truly free market economy and keeps government out of things like bailouts. It also balances a corporation's leadership to be ultra responsive to it stockholders and the larger community. If, for example, a man like Warren Buffet owns 51% of the stock, but he goes to sleep at the switch and the company, say it is a chemical company like Union Carbide, goes to sleep at the switch, too, and chooses corporate profits over human values as in Bhopal, a smaller group of stockholders, generally sincere embarcers of free markets and shared governance, aren't necessarily shut out of the decision making process. It's a win-win for everyone....except for the CEO, CFO and five others."
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