Subject: Re: Bernie Ebbers - Worldcom

From: "J. Noel Chiappa" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 13:18:48 -0400

> From: [email-masked] (Dan Kolis)

    > off topic, but it effects this community

You're correct, and I hope I will be afforded some latitude for replying, but
I can't resist the opportunity to bring to everyone's attention a truly great
book, one which happens to have material bearing on your point 

It's called "Slide Rule", and it's the auto-biography of the famous author
Nevil Shute, who as Nevil Shute Norway was a leading aeronautical engineer in
the 30's before his writing career took off.

The airplane business in those days was the equivalent of the
computer/network industries today - people with bright ideas starting small
companies. As such, the description of the basic business strategies seem
very familiar. It's really eerie to read a book written in 1954 that talks
about how "the company must get big quickly"! Get Big Fast, indeed. Mr.
Norway was lucky - the Second World War came along and bailed his aircraft
company out.

He has this to say about your following point:

    > I think Bernie E at Mci/Worldcom is getting kicked in the ass too hard
    > by congress and the investment community.
    > ...
    > there are fiber Erbium Amplifiers on the floor of the ocean carrying
    > Gigabits of messages a second .. There *not* there without some scary
    > risk taking.

"At one time or another one must be prepared to throw one's personal
reputation into the scales, when money is at an end. ... I have in mind the
case of one fraudulent financier in particular who went to prison ... If, in
fact, the depression had come to an end six months earlier, everything would
have come right again, the fraud would never have come to light, and many
people would have been saved from great distress. ... At the same time, it is
right and proper that such men should go to prison. All business is based on
truth and confidence, and unless certain standard of honest dealing are
maintained no industry would be possible."

	Noel