Thursday, September 22, 2005

Just a Lucky Guess

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such scoundrels.
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Anglo-Irish satirist

I doubt he’ll be doing any time in the penitentiary soon, but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, selling all of his HCA Inc. hospital stock two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report causing its price to fall 9% seems rather curious.

You could say it was just blind luck since his holdings are in a blind trust, but all his family sold their shares too. I suppose it was just lucky for them as well.

Frist revealed earlier this year that his blind trusts are valued between $7 million to $35 million. The former was the size of Vice President Dick Cheney’s last bonus check from Halliburton as he started the 2000 campaign.

Is there any wonder why this administration provides tax breaks to the rich or wants to eliminate the estate tax?

Update: 9/23/05, The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are investigating Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family.

2 comments:

stc said...

Fark.com has a pithy description of this news item, with a hilarious punchline:

Senate majority leader dumps stock days before 15 percent drop on bad earnings. Martha Stewart kicks dog.
Q

The Misanthrope said...

The more I read about the sale of the stock the more tainted the whole deal looks. Frist brother is running the company, which a few years ago paid $1.2 billion in fines for doctor kickbacks.