Debate on U.S. bankruptcy law signals pro-business shift in Senate

[lovuian]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/10/business/broke.html

WASHINGTON In what has seemed a daily ritual, the Senate in the last two weeks has defeated the most modest attempts by Democrats to curb bankruptcy abuses by corrupt or troubled corporations and their senior executives.
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Just two and a half years ago, in the midst of plunging stock markets and widening business scandals that left many thousands of workers unemployed and without their retirement savings, fearful lawmakers rushed by a vote of 97-0 to adopt the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. It was the most aggressive federal anticorruption law Congress had adopted in decades. On the day of the Senate vote, the Dow Jones industrial average was down as much as 440 points. Days earlier, WorldCom executives disclosed the first details of the largest accounting fraud in history.
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Now, as business scandals occupy a less prominent place in newspapers and the stock market is well above its 2002 lows, the politics of financial regulation have sharply shifted.
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The new mood has emboldened corporate lobbyists to ask for and receive more from lawmakers, who no longer seem to be concerned about recrimination at the polls. At the same time, business interests have picked up new allies in the Senate, giving them significantly more influence over its proceedings.
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"How quickly things change," said Ann Yerger, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a group of major shareholders that sought tough corporate governance and accounting rules. "It's been stunning. In the past few months alone, there has been a clear push back from the corporate community, and it has resonated. Folks have short memories, and there is a perception that the Enrons are behind us.
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"All the money is on one side, and all the hurt is on the other," Warren said.
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How quickly American Senators forget the Enron's & the World Cons and yet for the poor they have no pity!!!

Dickens times here we come!!!