Bill Cara: Stelco�s CEO was career exec of Brascan, Mon., Dec. 5, 2005, 2:57 PM

Bill Cara: Stelco�s CEO was career exec of Brascan, Mon., Dec. 5, 2005, 2:57 PM: "E&Y, under Hap Stephen, was also auditor of government spending that the Gomery Royal Commission found to be corruption on a major scale " the biggest in the history of Canada. Hap "

Bill links PM Martin with Stelco CEO Hap.

Now I’ll tell you a true story about my having crossed the Executive VP (Finance) of Noranda, which was the jewel of Brascan. He, the former Ontario govt energy minister and I were in an investment roundtable at the Toronto Press Club done for the Canadian Doctor magazine. At lunch afterward, I made the mistake of talking about possible illegal insider share buying. A screaming match ensued. Well actually, it was 100-pct one way. I was in the business exactly sixteen months – having joined after a solid accounting and consulting career – and already a leader of Corporate Canada was undressing me in public. Our host was gracious enough to put a stop to my quick demise.

Bill could (should) write a book on this stuff. Stranger than fiction...

And that’s how these things go. You decide early in your life, which road you are going to take, and you stick to it. Even when the going gets tough.

What all of us have to do is to fight conflicts of interest. There is no faster path to social equity.

Searching for social equity brings up Social Democracy in Wikipedia. Aka NDP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy


“Jim’s the dean of the whole area and certainly Bob Blair didn’t do this lightly,” says one litigator. “He sat on the commercial list many years with Jim. But I think some of this is also aimed at the bondholders in New York. Finance guys want certainty, so when the court steps in to the arena and starts removing directors on its own violation, you can’t do that. Directors are the company.

“So I think the language is also to reinforce that we have rule of law here, that we don’t have judges running the whole show. U.S. bondholders really do own the world. If they withdraw from our market, we’re screwed.”

This so reminds me of the movie Wall Street.



Plot Summary for Wall Street (1987)
Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a Wall Street stockbroker in early 1980's New York with a strong desire to get to the top. Working for his firm during the day, he spends his spare time working an on angle with with to approach the high-powered, extremely successful (but ruthless and greedy) broker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Fox finally meets with Gekko, who takes the youth under his wing and explains his philosophy that "Greed is Good". Taking the advice and working closely with Gekko, Fox soon finds himself swept into a world of "yuppies", shady business deals, the "good life", fast money, and fast women; something which is at odds with his family including his estranged father (Martin Sheen) and the blue-collared way Fox was brought up.

I never caught on to this before, but Warren Buffett's company Geico Insurance's mascot is a Gecko. I wonder if Stanley Weiser & Oliver Stone took note of that, or just liked associating a corporate raider to a lizard.