Pump and Dump or Community Democracy and the Environment

Pump and Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New Economy

Author: Robert H Tillman

Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing—the mere mention of these companies brings forth images of scandal, fraud, and large-scale corruption. But do these dark stars of media stories represent a few isolated cases or does the extensive nature of their misconduct provide evidence of a regulatory black hole in the so-called New Economy?

In Pump and Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New Economy, Robert H. Tillman and Michael L. Indergaard argue that these scandals represent only the symptoms of a corporate governance problem that began in the 1990s as New Economy pundits claimed that advances in technology and forms of business organization were changing the rules. A decade later, it looked more like a case of no rules. Endless revelations of fraud in the wake of corporate bankruptcies left ordinary investors bewildered and employees with little or nothing.

Tillman and Indergaard observe that victims were taken in by organized behavior that calls to mind "pump and dump" schemes where shadowy swindlers push penny stocks. Yet, in the 1990s it was high-profile firms and high-status accomplices (financial analysts, bankers, and accountants) who used powerful institutional levers to pump the value of stock—duping investors while insiders sold their holdings for fantastic profits.

The authors explain how it was that so much of corporate America came to resemble a two-bit securities scam by focusing on the rules that mattered in three critical industries—energy trading, telecommunications, and dot-coms. Free-market hype and policies at the national level set the tone. While Wall Street wrapped itself in star-spangled packaging and celebrated its purported "democratization," in the real halls ofdemocracy congressional allies of business gutted protections for ordinary investors. In the regulatory vacuum that resulted, regulators and auditors who were supposed to watch corporations instead promoted New Economy doctrines and worked with executives to endorse their firms as New Economy contenders. Ringleaders in the inner circles that committed fraud made their own rules, which they enforced through a mix of bribery and bullying.

At a time when there is growing debate about proposals to privatize programs like Social Security, Pump and Dump offers a path-breaking analysis of America's most urgent economic problems: a system that relies on self-regulation and the rancid politics that continue to support the short-term interests of financial elites over the long-term interests of most Americans.

New interesting book: Faith in the Fog of War or Das Kapital New Edition

Community, Democracy, and the Environment: Sharing the Future

Author: Jane A Grant

Community, Democracy, and the Environment explores the character of the community and polity in the United States, reviews the orientations of Americans to the environment and environmental policy, and suggests some directions for how people may better learn to share the future with each other and the other species on the planet.

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments	ix
1	Community, Democracy, and the Environment: Overview and Background	1
2	Discussion, Participation, Deliberation, and Modern Community: Connections with Public Spheres, Governmental Sectors, Civil Ethics, and Environmental Values	17
3	Fostering Democratic Deliberation over Environmental Policy: The Indiana Hazardous Waste Facility Site Approval Authority	41
4	The Environment, Energy Policy, and Sustainable Development in the United States: Historical Antecedents and Future Prospects	67
5	Global Climate Change: Linking National Deliberations with International Negotiations	91
6	Conclusion: Learning to Share the Future	109
	Index	125
	About the Author	135