More
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
US News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Matrix Masters'
SUPPORTERS

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

 

Schroeder Says US Corporate Scandals 'Iceberg Tip'
LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany (Reuters) -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder blamed U.S. corporate culture for recent accounting scandals and lauded Europe's model on Tuesday as President Bush launched new penalties for such abuses. Faced with a raft of accounting abuses, including at energy firm Enron and telecoms giant WorldCom, Bush unveiled a number of proposals on Tuesday aimed at fighting fraud and rebuilding confidence in corporate America's finances. A senior European Union official also blasted U.S. corporate practice saying American accounting rules had been used to raise share prices rather than reflect fair company values. Addressing employees at chemical giant BASF in the town of Ludwigshafen, Schroeder defended the German corporate system which encourages workers and employers to cooperate on the supervisory boards that steer the direction of their companies. "Now it has been revealed that egotism practiced at the top under the catchphrase 'shareholder value' is worth less in macroeconomic terms, but also as far as the companies themselves are concerned, than a system based on a fair balance between the interests of workers and employers," he said. Schroeder, who has often rejected calls to adopt what he calls U.S. "hire and fire" practices to help create more jobs in Germany, said the scandals at Enron and WorldCom showed that the American economic model should not always be emulated in Europe. "That is presumably just the tip of the iceberg and it has to do with a corporate culture which is different from here. There the individual employee is not valued and shareholder value is everything," he said. "Egoism at the top does not suffice to have lasting economic success," he said. "It must perhaps lie in the structure and not just individual lapses."

posted by West 5:36 PM