IF YOU DON'T SCRATCH MY BACK, YOU'LL GET A PRIMARY OPPONENT.
THE SMELL TEST
The Democratic Party?
Where is all the money?
LIBERTY IS EXPENDABLE?
NEVER
NO SURRENDER OF LIBERTY
FOR A FALSE SENSE OF
SECURITY
LIBERTY CREATES SECURITY
THE DISCONCERTING QUESTION IS:
HAS OUR SOCIETY BECOME CORRUPT?
IF SO, WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REVERSE IT?
We Have Lost Our Way;
And, Must Find Our Way Home
To A New America?
WHAT IS CROOKERY?
CROOKERY
IS A COINED TERM DESCRIBING INCALCULABLE COMPREHENSIVE SOCIETAL CORRUPTION AND SCANDALS ON A SCALE PERMEATING ALL ASPECTS OF LIFE'S . ALMOST BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF CREDIBILITY AND REASONED ANALYSIS.
THE MENTALITY OF "CROOKERY"
REMEMBER, IT IS MONEY - NOT PEOPLE - MAKING THE WORLD GO AROUND.
WHY STRUGGLE TO WIN,WHEN CHEATING GUARANTEES VICTORY.
LIFE IS A RAT RACE; AND, YOU WANT TO BE KING RAT. OTHERWISE, YOU'RE JUST MINNIE MOUSE..
EVERYBODY DOES IT.
IT'S THE REAL WORLD. GET REAL; OR GET LOST IN THE SHUFFLE.
EVERYBODY CHEATS. BUT, THE RICH GET OFF. THEY CAN AFFORD LAWYERS??
LIKE THE PRESIDENT SAID, "THE RICH PEOPLE DON'T PAY TAXES. THEY HIRE LAWYERS."
LIKE THE PHILOSOPHER SAYS, "BEWARE, OF A RICH MAN CRYING POOR. SECURE YOUR WALLET."
CROOKERY'S RULE #1: YOU MUST ALWAYS PRETEND WE REALLY HAVE A DEMOCRACY AND A FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM. DENIAL OF EITHER MEANS INSTANT FINANCIAL FAILURE
BUT, WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH "THE REALITY" IS THERE ARE TWO AMERICAS: THOSE INFLUENTIAL WITH THE TWIN BIG BROTHERS; THEN, THERE ARE THE REST OF US
PLEASE READ OUR
"YUPPIE CODE OF NON-ETHICS" PAGES
AND
ASK YOURSELF:
ARE THESE SOME REASONS WHY U.S. BUSINESS BECAME CORRUPTED. STEALING 8 'T' TRILLION ON THE STOCK MARKET. WHY 6 'T' TRILLION IN TAX-GIVEAWAYS TRANSFERRED MORE WEALTH TO THE UPPER CLASS? WHY THE 7 'T' TRILLION MUTUAL FUND INDUSTRY IS JEOPARDIZED WITH 100 AMERICANS INVESTED? IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GENEROUS FAIR PROFIT AND OUTRIGHT PROFITEERING? ONLY 3 OR 4 INDIVIDUAL WILL B JAILED IN COUNTRY CLUB PRISONS FOR THE RICH? YOU TELL US...
SADLY,
WE MUST CONFRONT
THESE PROBLEMS
BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
A SOCIETY WITHOUT ETHICS SOON COLLAPSES.
BECAUSE NO ONE TRUSTS ANYONE.
NO TRUST - NO SOCIETY!
A-DEMOCRACY'S-CORRUPTION
-DEMANDS-REFORM-WHEN:
" LIST
When greedy CORPORATE RAIDERS, are permitted to do hostile takeovers and dismember profitable corporations, and destroy communities- un-employing their citizens with impunity."
When a vast number in the workforce are intentionally UNDER-EMPLOYED - PART-TIMED - UNABLE TO MAKE A LIVING WAGE."
WHEN employers arrogantly steal employees right to OVERTIME PAY."
WHEN: Our children's' jobs are being exported overseas.
WHEN: the USA's the world's most prosperous, but affluence is not reasonably shared with the working population.
WHEN: the typical American toils, pays their bills, but retains little excess or savings.
WHEN: women are paid approximately 80 percent of what men are for the same work.
WHEN: stock market investments are of great consequence than capital investment in job-producing Main Street.
WHEN: highly-respected business organizations disregard the ruinous exporting of America; simultaneously, asserting a fallacious misconstruction of GLOBALISM.
WHEN: U.S. corporations no longer recommend innovative proposals for domestic prosperity; on the contrary, prefer export of production and services to exploit slave-waged workers.
WHEN: unethical (even illegal) behavior is expected of corporate employees terrified of job loss.
WHEN: our prosperous corporate executives (whose education we facilitated) prefer exporting our standard of living.
WHEN: to succeed; you need to greed?
WHEN: an individual's career assumes primacy over their nation; and, living an honorable life based upon character.
WHEN: doing the right thing-- personal integrity -- is not part of the corporate equation; compared to career advancement.
WHEN: cynically, the underlying national ethical attitude seems to be, "What's in it for me? Everyone looks out for No. 1?"
WHEN: people love money more than people. (See: 80s survey 49% people would abandon family for $1 million.)
WHEN: people no longer aspire to earn a good income, but desire to be Rich.
WHEN: people covet more, but when they acquire more, more is never enough.
WHEN: you do not know who your in next-door neighbor is.
WHEN: free enterprise capitalism is replaced by monopolistic capitalism.
WHEN: one class of Americans enrich themselves at the expense of the remainder.
WHEN: US Multinationals brazenly export vast numbers of U.S. jobs to slave-waged nations.
WHEN: the special interests are no longer special - they are in charge; and feared.
WHEN: there exists a vast wealth disparity between The Rich and the average citizen. Complainers are falsely accused of fostering class warfare.
WHEN: the wealthy few own or control 80 to 90% of America's wealth.
WHEN: an economic recovery benefits only The Rich - creates no jobs for the Middle-Class and The Working Poor.
WHEN: an annual $10-12 trillion economy bestows 50% of revenue to the top 20 % (quintile); and 80% of the remaining population must struggle for the residual $5 trillion.
WHEN: The Rich gripe about allegedly paying most income taxes, when, to the contrary, the IRS Code merely transfers the enormous tax burden to The Middle-Class; and, yes, The Working Poor.
WHEN: the NYSE is robbed of $8 ''T'' Trillion of investors' savings; and scarcely a minority of corporate criminals are: investigated, less charged, less convicted, and the remainder sentenced to soft-time in country club prisons.
WHEN: there develops two systems of law - one of The Rich and one for everyone.
WHEN: After awarding contracts without competing bids to Dick Cheney's Halliburton - it intentionally overcharges the government $61 million; and no sanction or legally penalty is imposed.
WHEN: highly-respected economists brazenly declare exportation of living wage US jobs is good for the Economy.
WHEN: the average American favors true reciprocal (mutual) free-fair trade - but other nations are Protectionists - disallowing US products market access. Dissenting Americans are accused of being protectionists- isolationists; or, or worse.
WHEN: employers overwork employees, part-time them, attempt to destroy overtime pay, under the guise of beating foreign competition, (with a threatening gun to head re plant movement to Mexico, and subsequently do so anyway). When "Afta' Nafta is a disasta'."
WHEN: two parent middle-class families are obligated to work two Mc-minimum wage jobs to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.
WHEN: parents work so hard they do not have time to properly raised their children.
WHEN: high school and college graduates have no employment option except military service or other low-paying job.
WHEN: when the divorce rate exceeds 50 percent.
WHEN: past interest rates were capped at a maximum of 10%; exceeding it was criminally chargeable as USURY, but credit card rates usually exceed 20% placing the middle-class in jeopardy of bankruptcy. (Yes, Rep. Hugo Black III, we remember your fight to prevent this!)
WHEN: there is a feeling of fatalism-pessimism (loss of past generations' fire-in-the-bellies) underlying the national psychology - where people believe they lost control, unable to rectify their economic lot.
WHEN: the corporate-owned Media reports the USA is the world's richest nation, yet average Americans' standard of living has declined- media has sold its soul ethics for ratings. covering ENTERTAINMENT but never the national issues.
More to come.......of what we have become...........?
WHEN: one class of Americans enrich themselves at the expense of the remainder.
WHEN: there exists a vast wealth disparbrity between The Rich and the average citizen. Complainers are falsely accused of fostering class warfare.
WHEN: an economic recovery benefits only The Rich - creates no LIVING-WAGE JOBS for the Middle-Class and The Working Poor.
WHEN: The Rich gripe about allegedly paying most income taxes, when, to the contrary, the IRS Code merely transfers the enormous tax burden to The Middle-Class; and, yes, The Working Poor,
BIG BROTHER is not big brother.
It is TWINS = BIG BROTHERS.
Joined at the head, and the checkbook
THE TWIN BIG BROTHERS ARE:
1. THE USA MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
AND
2. THE BIG BROTHER USA GOVERNMENT -
[CONTROLLED BY CORPORATE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS PAID BY CONSUMERS PURCHASING PRODUCTS..]
A SOCIETY WITHOUT ETHICS SOON COLLAPSES, BECAUSE SOON NO ONE TRUSTS EACH OTHER.
If I artificially restrict the supply of gasoline I sell, knowing demand remains high, and consumer prices will skyrocket, is that legal, illegal; or, just immoral an corrupt?
If I artificially restrict the supply of gasoline I sell, knowing demand remains high, and consumer prices will skyrocket, is that legal, illegal; or, just immoral an corrupt?
NO ONE HARDLY SAID A WORD
NEVER STEAL ANYTHING SMALL
Yes Ivan Boesky got 3 years in country club prison then released to spend his 100 million stolen. Then Michael Milkin stole, by crude estimations, approximately $500 million. He was imprisoned 5 years served 3 in another country club prison. THEN released to enjoy his 500 million or more. Milkin's poor secretary received more time .
YOU CAN HAVE A GOOD TIME IN A COUNTRY CLUB PRISON.
OR, A HARD TIME, IN A REAL PRISON. ONE FOR US.
ARE THERE TWO AMERICA'S
NICE FEDERAL PRISON CAMP. SIMILAR TO TAKING A VACATION.
Such Country Club Prison incarceration is known as SOFT TIME. Compared to being flagellated [whipped] 24/7 with a powder-puff.
WHICH OF THESE FAMILY MEMBERS WAS INVOLVED IN THE $500 BILLION SAVINGS & LOAN BANKING SCANDAL?
YES. W's Brother.the S&L $500 billion theft (To our friend Timmy: You broke the hearts of the guys FROM C&F)
Read my lips, no new taxes...
Read my lips, no new taxes... Soon became. Well, you see this $500 Billion in the Savings and Loan Banks mysterious vanished. We cannot find it . So, sorry, but we must tax you 'the little people.' [This is a way not to be re-elected] P.S. Most participants highly respect Pres.G.H.W. Bush, and wish this issue could be avoided. Nevertheless, the WHOLE TRUTH must be reported.
All of which caused the present President Bush "W" to unwisely bestow to the Wealthy our $5.6 T Trillion surplus while simultaneously generating a $4-5 T Trillion ever-ecscalating national deficit and debt.
NOTE: In all fairness, a majority of Site participants, contend "W" was mislead, ill-advised by smirking advisors.
With his trusty advisor...
REMEMBER,, IT IS MONEY - NOT PEOPLE - WHICH SPINS THE WORLD AROUND. IT'S A RAT RACE; AND,YOU WANT TO BE KING RAT. OTHERWISE, YOU'RE JUST MINNIE MOUSE.... The Cynic
The Liberals are playing politics. Helped by the Liberal Media.
Economic-financial corruption reigns supreme.
It is not addressed by politicians who fear loss of corporate campaign contributions - necessary to win elections or re-election.
Of course, we already have publics financing of all elections. It is collected by the corporations at the retail market in the price charged for goods and services.
Furthermore, they take a hefty tax-deduction for it passing it on to the middle-class and poor a second time.
Thus, they get to control the democratic-republican political process even before the candidates are chosen.
Then they are repaid by a third time by being awarded contracts and other financial favors for FROM!!!>>> the government which they elected.
They are repaid fourth time by lobbying and gaining contracts FROM!!!>>> the bureaucracy.
Hey. We want our piece of the pie.
"Some serve; others serve themselves." The Philosopher
Candidates?
ELECTED OFFICIALS!
Don't turn your backs on us! Living-Wage Jobs and VETERAN BENEFITS are FAMILY VALUES!!!
"WE-DEMAND-OUR-MONEY-BACK
-FROM!!!" LIST:
(AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN FRIEND ON CIVIL AND FINANCIAL RIGHTS SAID: "No one is going to give you your rights, you have to demand them. And, so it will be with the American Public whose jobs are being exported to slave-wage labor nations. If they don't stand up and demand their jobs, they are lost. So, we are not requesting economic justice, rather we are demanding it. So, transform your philosophy, invest our US production capital in the USA, and let us labor concurrently to re-establish our manufacturing economy. Utilizing our historic imaginative, practical. and feasible technological appliance. You either are primarily committed to America or you are unfaithful)
FROM!!!>>>---the S&L $500 billion theft (To our friend Timmy: You broke the hearts of the guys FROM C&F)
FROM!!!>>> Boesky --$100 million thievery
FROM!!!>>> the Milkin $500 million junk bond larceny
FROM!!!>>> the corporate raiders like T. Boone Pickins who dismembered productive corporations, sold off the parts, destroying entire communities and lives.
FROM!!!>>> the corporations who demanded wage-givebacks, then move their manufacturing plants overseas anyway.
FROM!!!>>> the US Mega Multinational monopolies who exported US businesses overseas since 1970. We fostered their growth. Our economic collaboration warrants some RETURN ON OUR INVESTMENT.
FROM!!!>>> the corporate greedheads - head-hunters who callously downsized experienced employees mandating early retirement - after years of dedicated service.
FROM!!!>>> the NYSE, Securities Companies, brazen brokers and the SEC who stole $800=incorrect [our mistake - supposed to be 8 ie "8" T Trillion] T TRILLION FROM!!!>>> the American people. Only a few will be even tried less convicted and sentenced to soft-time Florida country club prisons.
FROM!!!>>> President Bush who bestowed to the Wealthy our $5.6 T Trillion surplus simultaneously generating a $4-5 T Trillion deficit.
FROM!!!>>> the $7 T Trillion Mutual Funds industry (with 90 million US citizens invested) alleged stealing Americans retirement savings.
FROM!!!>>> any Bermuda or Judas corporate CEO who injured our economy by not paying their fair-share of taxes.
FROM!!!>>> US trade representatives who were in fact economic traitors.
FROM!!!>>> established US corporations we birthed and promoted their growth, but who dumped us.
FROM!!!>>> all US corporations who paid zero taxes. Passed the liability onto the Middle-Class.
FROM!!!>>> those US corporations importing foreign techs (with new visa legislation) to supplant our children employed in tech jobs. We financially sacrificed, indebting them and ourselves, for their tech college degrees.
For those of us who once earned a living wage - who presently work two jobs at McMinimum wage
FROM!!!>>> the politicians we elected and paid to represent us, but sold us a phony bill of goods: Globalism was good for us, would provide us even better jobs.
FROM!!!>>> those prejudiced, hate-monger, sadistic radio talk-show hosts who lied blaming: affirmative action, African- Americans, women and Welfare's poor children --- while they knew US corporations were exporting our living wage jobs to slave-wage nations.
FROM!!!>>> state and federal attorneys general who did not enforce RICO and Anti-trust laws. Instead, permitting monopoly formation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the FEW. Destroying free enterprise capitalism.
FROM!!!>>> government officials who permitted foreign corporations dumping below-cost imports on the US market annihilating struggling new US fledgling companies.
FROM!!!>>> domestic mega retailers monopolies who locate in a geographic area - low-ball (predatorily price) local small MAIN STREET businesses out of business.
FROM!!!>>> these we demand our money and economic future prosperity back. .... more
FROM!!!>>> these we demand our money and economic future prosperity back. .... more later...............
"The Economist" "The Middle-Class Advocate" and "Mr. Average"
When Billions - even Trillions - are stolen, but few are indicted. Less convicted. Less are incarcerated in MAXIMUM SECURITY prisons.
The Sgt. Schultz defense,"I know nothink!"
WILL THIS MAN EVER COME TO TRIAL?
There is Justice Delayed, and there is Justice without LAY.
ACCOUNTABILITY: YOU CAN COUNT ON US.
THE ACCOUNTING PROFESSION
[These Professionals keep society's numbers. The Public trusts them to report truthful honest values upon which investment judge is dependent.]
BECAME ACCOUNTABILITY IS US
YOU CAN TRUST AND COUNT ON US.
LET US PLAY COOK THE BOOKS
CROOKERY WITH THE BOOKERY: is defined as
WE TREAT YOUR MONEY, AS IF IT WERE OURS.
WE COUNT IT, BUT WE DO NOT GIVE IT BACK.
The Scam Works Like This:
People love money. They all want to be Rich. So, money follows money. People follow what the Rich do, so they can one day be Rich.
Now, when we audit your corporation books, we make you look the richest possible. Then everyone will want to buy your stock. Because your books say - scream - we make money! We are a success! And, that is how you suck in the suckers, the unwary investors. So, as our founder said: "It is not how Rich you are, it is how Rich people think you are. Perception is reality. It is what people believe, not what is, which 'is' important." And, we are the best at making others perceive you are WEALTH-BURDENED. You - kickback - pay us our tax deductible fees. And, once again, as nature designed the reality of things, the liitle people ARE LEFT HOLDING THE EMPTY BAG.
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CARY, N.C. — Jim Goodnight, the lanky, laconic CEO of software company SAS Institute, has been praised over and over for creating one of the world's best places to work.
CEO Jim Goodnight didn't take SAS public during the tech boom. That has been a blessing for the company.
Karen Tam, AP
Yet he has gotten little credit for one of the best — or at least luckiest — strategic decisions in the technology industry in the past decade.
At the peak of the tech bubble in 2000, with intense pressure on the long-private and highly respected SAS to go public and rake in billions of dollars, Goodnight said no.
He said no against a powerful tide of conventional wisdom. He said no when saying yes would've vaulted him near the top tier of wealth and fame. His two-thirds ownership of SAS — pronounced "Sass" — would've placed him a notch below the likes of Microsoft's Bill Gates and Oracle's Larry Ellison.
By saying no, Goodnight, 61, saved his company's culture — a way of life so envied it was featured in 2003 on 60 Minutes and consistently lands SAS near the top of Fortune's annual list of best places to work. Saying no also allowed SAS to be one of the few tech companies to prosper during the 2001-2003 tech downturn.
SAS sells analytic software, which takes databases full of information and makes sense of it. Banks, for instance, use SAS to figure out who would most likely respond to a mailing for a new credit card.
Yet now Goodnight is in something of a jam. SAS is in terrific shape to take off in a resurgent tech industry — but to really soar and reach its potential, SAS should go public, industry observers say.
"True greatness requires a grand plan fueled with equal amounts of paranoia and greed," says Mike Campbell, CEO of software firm TempoSoft and previously a top executive at SAS' sometimes-competitor, SAP. The demands of Wall Street would drive Goodnight and SAS harder and would give SAS the cash and stock to pay for expansion. "He can and should set his sights much higher," Campbell says.
Not only does Goodnight stand stubbornly against going public, but the SAS culture might not let him.
A wonderful life
You could use the SAS story to construct a version of the 1946 movie It's a Wonderful Life. With Goodnight's decision intact, SAS is a manicured, homey place of on-site health care, hefty benefits and piano players in the cafeteria. Take away Goodnight and his decision, and SAS likely would be a public company forced by investors and Wall Street over the past three years to slash costs to prop up the stock price. Its campus would be a much drearier place after waves of layoffs and lost perks.
ABOUT SAS
Founded: 1976. Headquarters: Cary, N.C., on 200-acre campus. Employees: 9,238. Ownership: The world's largest privately held software company, owned two-thirds by co-founder Jim Goodnight; one-third by co-founder John Sall. Perks: On-site health care and day care; fitness center; profit sharing; piano player in the cafeteria. Rank on Fortune' s 2004 list of best places to work: 8. Business: Makes analytic software, used by companies to make sense of data and statistics. Customers include major banks, Coca-Cola, Major League Baseball, Harley-Davidson.
Source: SAS
"We would've been crushed," says Jim Davis, a SAS senior vice president. "We are firm believers that happy employees equal happy customers. If you disrupt that balance, you run the risk of disrupting our whole business model."
"It would have destroyed the culture," says Al Segars, professor at the nearby University of North Carolina's business school. "It was one of the best strategic decisions ever made in the software industry."
What does Goodnight say about it? In an interview in a SAS conference room, he seems to think the decision wasn't all that momentous. "We were never really close" to going public, he says.
But either he is modest or his memory is short. In an early-2001 interview with USA TODAY, Goodnight talked of the serious steps SAS had taken toward an IPO, including instituting financial controls and hiring a former Oracle executive, Andre Boisvert, to get the company ready. "A year ago at a user conference I announced our intent to go public," Goodnight said back then. "I felt it was time to reward employees with some ownership."
At some point, he obviously changed his mind.
Goodnight stands 6-feet, 5-inches tall, with a slouchy, slow-moving bearing. He wears hiking boots, even when dressed in a dark suit to lobby in Washington, and speaks in a lazy, soft voice, leaving long, uncomfortable pauses when he has no more to say. Goodnight seems particularly adept, actually, at keeping people off balance. He says he practices "management by loitering," showing up in unexpected places. He will personally take charge of a troubled department to fix it, or haul a handful of employees off to an unused floor and work with them to create a new product.
Goodnight, a statistician and computer programmer by training, has run SAS since its founding in 1976. He comes off like a seat-of-the-pants entrepreneur. And yet, "At SAS, everything is carefully thought out and considered," UNC's Segars says. "It's very scientific. It follows from Goodnight's past (as a statistician)."
Internet craze hits
In the late-1990s, the Internet craze drove tech stocks sky high. SAS had never considered going public, and by then was the largest privately held software company. In 1999, it hit $1 billion in revenue. (By comparison, publicly held Oracle had $8.8 billion revenue in 1999.)
ABOUT CEO JIM GOODNIGHT
Born: Jan. 6, 1943. Hometown: Wilmington, N.C., where his father owned a hardware store. Previous job: Faculty, North Carolina State University, 1972-76. Family: Wife Anne, grown daughters Leah and Susan, son James. None plan to take over SAS. "My family's not interested," Goodnight says. Favorite pet project: Cary Academy, a private school built by SAS on its campus. It makes extensive use of technology - every student gets a computer. Worst pet project: Personally rescued Midway Airlines in 1997. The money-losing airline shut in 2001.
Source: USA TODAY research
SAS had no investors pushing for an IPO. Aside from Goodnight's two-thirds ownership, the other one-third is held by co-founder John Sall. But employees were getting restless. Tech start-ups dangled million-dollar stock options to lure SAS programmers, managers and sales staff. Other employees read about Silicon Valley secretaries getting rich when their companies went public and realized that could be them.
The media and industry analysts focused on the glamour of the public companies, all but ignoring SAS — which irked Goodnight. "They don't even look at a private company," Goodnight grumbled in that 2001 interview.
Goodnight's gut told him to start heading down the IPO road. So he did.
While teaching at North Carolina State University in the 1970s, Goodnight, Sall and a handful of other young academics wrote and sold software they called Statistical Analysis System, or SAS. In 1976, they left the school to make SAS an independent business, and gave themselves the same cushy benefits they got in academia — including the academic titles. SAS employees still refer to Goodnight as "Dr. Goodnight," a name that conjures images of a James Bond villain.
As time went on, SAS built its rolling, woodsy campus with on-site health clubs, day care and medical facilities, and the company paid hefty cash bonuses and profit sharing. While other corporations backed away from paternalism, SAS embraced it. Certain kinds of people have been drawn there. They tend to be more interested in security, community and long-term thinking and less focused on financial rewards and power titles.
From this formed a culture of intensely loyal people who think about the company's well-being as much as about their own. And they don't want the culture to change.
Inside SAS during the tech bubble, tension mounted between the allure of stock market wealth and the sanctuary of the SAS culture. Lots of tech companies famously threw extravagant parties and offered perks, like Google's free gourmet lunches. But none matched SAS, which offered the old-time feeling that the company would take care of its employees for the long term. One sign of that is the extraordinary low turnover — about 3.8% a year, vs. as much as 25% a year for a typical tech company.
"I heard the rumblings (about an IPO), and I didn't want it," says Dina Fiorentino, who works in marketing and came to SAS from Apple Computer. "There is something great about SAS that I did not want to spoil."
Into this walked Boisvert, a public-company outsider who started instituting controls and systems for reporting earnings to Wall Street. He became the symbol of the IPO, and a year later, he was gone.
"Our culture is a lot like the human immune system," Goodnight says with a somewhat amused air. "If you bring a stranger into a leadership position, it attacks."
Steady and predictable
Goodnight, true to form, kept monitoring and analyzing the progress. Sensing trouble, he put off the investment bankers in 2000, and all the way through 2001. By then tech stocks had plummeted, making an IPO less and less attractive. Finally, in 2002 Goodnight surveyed SAS employees. Not surprisingly, 87% voted not to go public.
That was it. For Goodnight, the IPO issue was dead.
The decision — or maybe non-decision — has been a blessing for SAS. Certainly if it had been public, pressure from Wall Street would've forced it to cut staff, cut costs, or worse — the kind of things that happened to all but a handful of tech companies.
More significantly, while other companies have laid off talented workers the past two years, SAS has gone on a hiring spree, increasing staff by 6% in 2001, 8.5% in 2002 and 3% in 2003. "There was a lot of talent on the street out there," Goodnight says. Though revenue wasn't growing, he could spend money on hires for the long term and let profits slip for a few years. "If we were public, I wouldn't have been able to do that."
Bulked up with talent, developing new products while others hunkered down, SAS is now in the best shape in its history. It could lead the charge into a new kind of software that analyzes the vast amounts of data coming into companies, allowing the companies to understand their businesses and customers like never before. "Jim is in a perfect position to really change the software game," says TempoSoft's Campbell.
Now, though, comes that turning point. SAS can't really take advantage of its position unless Goodnight takes the company public, SAS watchers say. "I certainly won't do it," Goodnight says. "Maybe we can find a dynamic younger leader to replace me who'd be interested."
Within minutes, Goodnight says he has no intention of leaving and has no successor ready.
His stubborn streak and the momentum of the SAS culture served the company well through the tech bust. The next chapter will reveal whether that streak is a godsend, or a Shakespearean flaw.
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This was beginning the rape of America and the middle-class once Pres Bush I, the father, allowed the the savings and loans to be ripped off and again no one went to hard time prison. it was open season on raping the us economy. 500 billion stolen and passed on in additional taxes to the public in payroll taxes.
Good --- then until the corporate theft of 8 trillion
FROM!!!>>> the stock market and the economy , we assumed the federal government the Justice Department would enforce the law. That is, in to retrieve the middle-class investor money. That was not the case. Then when when President Bush No. 2 literally giveaway 6 trillion of our well deserved surplus to the upper class, we became seriously concerned. Since the giveaway totaled No. 13 trillion dollars: leading to the disturbing question: has been USA become a corrupt to society
13 TRILLION Dollars: Stolen or Given-Away A New Home For Each US Family!!! (SEE: Articles Page 6)One of our economists estimated with the 8 trillion stolen by the corporate crooks and wall street scammer and the 5.6 trillion surplus recklessly wasted amounted to $13 trillion. In his estimation, a brand new house could have been built and freely given to every American family-------free----and partially furnished.
This is the stain of shame on our society
This used to offset Pres. Bush's Tax cut for the rich. Moreover, The corporate criminals stole $8 TRILLION
FROM!!!>>> Middle-Class 401(k) retirement accounts and will not be imprisoned. Some may RECEIVE a small SEC fine, approximately 1 Billion for stealing $8 Trillion. Shockingly, this "settlement" is supported by the NY State Attorney's office . The Ashcroft Attorney General's office refused to enforce "THE FEDERAL LAWS.''
is about the completely crush. By Whom??? Real republican fiscal conservatives and democrats. Otherwise, this commences the gradual closing stages of America and the middle-class's demise. A three-tiered RICH, POOR and HAVE-LITTLES society will be substituted. INCREDIBLE!!! The republicans are borrowing the tax cuts FROM!!!>>> guess where? The Social Security and Medicare Funds.
veterans For instance, few know this, however, the VA Administration and veterans were cheated out of $29 Billion (over 10 years) to fiscally counterbalance the cuts. Next year, the VA loses $708 -$800 million in appropriations. This was was secretly consummate as President Bush deployed kids to battle the questionable Iraq War. Beyond Belief but true!
(AS AN ASIDE, most PAST, present, and future mergers and acquisitions violated U.S. AND STATE ANTI-TRUST LAWS. These deviously UN-ENFORCED--- This FROM!!!>>> our 30-year experienced ANTI-TRUST LEGAL SCHOLAR.)
