[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 75 (Monday, June 10, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5263-S5266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             PENSION REFORM

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, the front page of today's New York Times 
has an article with a title that reads ``Enthusiasm Ebbs for Tough 
Reform in Wake of Enron.'' That headline points out a political 
challenge that those of us in Congress have to deal with over the next 
few months; that is, the challenge to enact meaningful legislation 
while this terrible catastrophe which befell many employees and 
investors in relation to Enron is still fresh in mind.
  I, for one, am not ready to concede that we cannot take legislative 
action to make sure the country's workers are not protected from the 
next Enron-type meltdown. We need to take that legislative action. It 
needs to be a priority of the Congress. I rise to speak about some of 
the elements that legislative action ought to contain.
  Hardly a day goes by when we are not hearing about the collapse of 
another corporation. It is not just Enron.
  I think we have all come to recognize the problem of corporate 
mismanagement, the problem of questionable accounting, or actual 
dishonest accounting, the problem of misuse or abuse of the tax 
provisions early in the law. All of that is, unfortunately, more 
widespread than just the Enron example.
  These corporate misdeeds, executive malfeasance, accounting 
chicanery, unfortunately, provide grist for virtually every front page 
we see these days. These stories will not stop on their own. The 
problems will not go away on their own. Apparently, the system we have 
had in place for a long time is not working as it should. We need to 
pass legislation to address these recurring themes or else we will 
jeopardize a long-term economic recovery, which I know we are all 
hoping very much is in place and scheduled to occur.
  I have referred to a New York Times article. Mr. President, I ask 
unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record following 
my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. WYDEN). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, as noted in the article, Senator Daschle 
has indicated he would like to bring a bill to the Senate floor dealing 
with these issues before the August recess. I think that is an 
admirable goal, one that the entire Senate needs to join. 
Unfortunately, the administration and the House and some colleagues in 
the Senate have not shown the kind of zeal for these necessary reforms 
that is going to be required. I certainly hope the delays and obstacles 
that have arisen so far do not prevent us from bringing meaningful 
legislation before the Senate.
  Let me refer to a couple other articles while I am on the subject. I 
was reading these articles over the weekend in Business Week. One is an 
editorial in the current edition of Business Week, entitled 
``Accounting: Stronger Reforms, Please.'' It is a very interesting 
article, one that I think deserves the attention of everyone. Let me 
read a couple of paragraphs from it because I think it does make a 
point on which all of us need to focus. It says:

       If you hoped that the Enron/Andersen scandal would provide 
     an opportunity for just

[[Page S5264]]

     those sort of farsighted regulatory improvements, start 
     worrying. There are signs that the Bush Administration, under 
     pressure from the accounting lobby and business groups such 
     as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is willing to support only 
     mild changes in the current system. And there's a danger that 
     Congress will acquiesce. The House of Representatives has 
     already passed a very watered-down bill.
       That's wrong. Halfhearted reform is bad for the public, bad 
     for the economy, and even bad for the accounting industry, 
     which needs to reestablish its credibility. Instead, we think 
     the best bet for strong accounting and financial reform is 
     the legislation proposed by Senator Paul Sarbanes, Democrat 
     from Maryland, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
       Sarbanes' draft legislation--which is opposed by Senator 
     Phil Gramm, the ranking GOP member of the Banking Committee, 
     and the Bush Administration--would set up a strong private-
     sector board to oversee public-company accounting.

  It goes on to detail what is in the legislation and to urge that the 
legislation be considered and passed by the Congress.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the editorial from 
Business Week's current edition be printed in the Record immediately 
following my remarks.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 2.)
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, let me also call the attention of my 
colleagues to another section in the same magazine called The Barker 
Portfolio. It is entitled ``A Three-Point Plan for SEC Reform.'' It is 
by Robert Barker, and he goes into some detail about what he believes 
is an appropriate set of reforms for the Securities and Exchange 
Commission in order that these kinds of problems can be avoided in the 
future.
  I ask unanimous consent that this be printed in the Record following 
my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 3.)
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, before leaving this general subject, let 
me talk a little about a subject on which I have focused in recent 
weeks, which is part of this overall corporate mismanagement problem 
that we have been talking about, and that is the problem of pensions. 
What do we do to preserve the retirement of workers in these companies 
that turn out to have cooked the books or to have engaged in some kind 
of practice that causes the value of that company to go away?
  There are essentially four major issues that I think need to be 
focused on regarding retirement security for Americans. Let me put that 
chart up and go through the list once more for those who are interested 
in this subject.
  There are four major areas where we need to concentrate our attention 
and where I believe we can legislate in a constructive fashion. First, 
we need to have a goal of providing some type of retirement or pension 
plan for all workers in our society. There is no reason why a person 
should work 25, 30, 35, even 40 years at a job--or a series of jobs, 
which is much more common in this day and time--and wind up with no 
pension, no income, nothing they can depend on other than Social 
Security once they get to retirement age.
  Pensions and retirement coverage have not increased as a percentage 
of the workforce in the last 30 years. We have recent studies that have 
indicated that. About 50 percent of private sector workers actually 
have some sort of pension plan today. That is nationwide. The statistic 
is 50 percent. My home State of New Mexico, unfortunately, has the 
worst statistic of any of the 50 States. The percentage is 70 percent 
have no pension plan and are not expecting to have a pension; whereas, 
only 30 percent of private sector employees do have some sort of 
pension plan.
  I can remember the discussions in previous years around here where we 
talked about a three-legged stool when it came to retirement security. 
We said, when a person gets to retirement, they are going to have three 
things to depend upon, including Social Security payments--and we all 
want to see those continue. They are going to have their savings, and 
they are going to have their pension. The reality is very different 
from that model or that ideal that we have described for many years.
  The reality is that most people who have worked through their entire 
careers--at least in New Mexico where 70 percent have no pension--most 
people do not have three legs on the ``stool'' on which they are 
planning to sit. They have most likely one leg because they have not 
been able to save a significant amount, and they don't have any sort of 
pension or 401(k) plan. That is the first issue and the first item on 
the chart.
  All workers need a retirement or pension plan of some sort. We can do 
much more to expand pension coverage to make it more attractive for 
employers to provide pension coverage and to make it more available to 
workers in our society. We need to get about the business of doing 
that.
  Second, all workers should have a right to a secure retirement 
savings. The problems we have seen with Enron, the problems we have 
seen with other corporations, where retirement savings have been 
essentially frittered away, or put into stock by employers which turned 
out not to have value, need to be fixed. There is legislation that 
Senator Kennedy has proposed, which has been reported out of the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that I supported. That 
legislation is awaiting consideration on the Senate floor. I hope very 
much that we can move to consider that legislation.
  In the Finance Committee, we are also looking at legislation which 
would help ensure that people who have these pension savings, or who 
have a 401(k) plan, can be guaranteed those funds will be there when 
they actually retire.
  We need to protect employees from conflicts of interest that allow 
accountants, analysts, investment advisers, and, in some cases, 
employers to act in their own self-interest, rather than in the best 
interest of the employee who is supposed to benefit from that 
retirement plan.
  Third, all workers must have pension portability. One of the problems 
today in our workforce and our work careers is that most people will 
move from job to job, and over the period of 30, 35, 40 years of work, 
an average worker may have 8 or 10 jobs. We need to be sure they do not 
lose their pension benefits as they move from job to job. We need to be 
sure they can take those benefits with them and that the benefits will 
be portable.
  Again, we need to change the laws to make that occur on a more ready 
basis. I hope very much we can move to legislation to accomplish that.
  The fourth item I want to mention is all workers should be treated on 
a comparable basis as regards to retirement benefits. We are just now 
trying to understand all of the various mechanisms that have been used 
in some of these companies to get us to a result which we have seen 
over and over where the top executives of a corporation, when the 
corporation essentially collapses as a financial matter, where the top 
executives walk off with tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars 
in deferred compensation, in executive compensation of one kind or 
another; whereas the workers for that same corporation may wind up with 
nothing in their retirement accounts.
  We need to find out what those abuses are. We need to find out ways 
to correct them. We need to plug those loopholes in the existing law, 
and I believe we can.
  Mr. President, let me stop with that. I see other colleagues are 
waiting to speak. I believe very strongly this issue of retirement 
security needs to be on the agenda of this Congress. I know Senator 
Daschle is trying to put together a series of proposals coming from 
various committees so that we can consider it before the August recess. 
Retirement security is one of the provisions that we would hopefully 
give attention to as a result of or in the wake of the Enron scandal. I 
hope we can do that. I think the people of the country want to see us 
do that.
  I close with the article with which I began my discussion, 
``Enthusiasm Ebbs for Tough Reform in Wake of Enron.'' We need to prove 
that headline wrong and demonstrate that this Congress is committed to 
tough reform, and one of those reforms is in the area of retirement 
security.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                [From the New York Times, June 10, 2002]

           Enthusiasm Ebbs for Tough Reform in Wake of Enron

             (By Stephen Labaton and Richard A. Oppel, Jr.)

       Washington, June 9.--Six months after the collapse of 
     Enron, a wave of enthusiasm for

[[Page S5265]]

     overhauling the nation's corporate and accounting laws has 
     ebbed and the toughest proposals for change are all but dead.
       A powerful group of lobbyist, playing on partisan 
     disagreement in Congress, appears to have killed efforts to 
     impose tight new controls on corporate conduct. And while 
     some Democrats hope to turn the inaction to their advantage 
     in the fall elections, other lawmakers say that--barring more 
     business meltdowns that deepen the stock market's two-year 
     slump--voters are unlikely to care enough to influence their 
     ballots.
       Bills imposing more stringent accounting standards, 
     changing the tax and accounting treatment of employee stock 
     options and setting tougher conflict-of-interest rules for 
     stock analysts and accounting firms have all fallen victim to 
     political gridlock.
       Corporate America and the stock markets have not waited for 
     Washington. Instead, they have undertaken a host of changes 
     in response to the problems highlighted by Enron and 
     reinforced by corporate and accounting failures in the 
     telecommunications, cable and energy industries. Investors 
     have fled companies whose accounting or governance practices 
     fail to measure up to post-Enron standards. Some Republicans 
     say all this is evidence that the system is working without 
     heavy-handed interference by lawmakers.
       Congress did much to focus attention on flaws in the 
     nation's corporate and accounting practices with a series of 
     investigative hearings earlier this year, the most dramatic 
     of them conducted by committees in the Republican-led House. 
     Even so, with the debate over Enron at full boil, the House 
     adopted a measure in April that rejected the toughest 
     proposed changes.
       Senate Democrats now predict that they will have the votes 
     to get a broad measure of their own out of the Banking 
     Committee later this month on a party-line vote, but only by 
     tempering it to win the support of moderates. Senator Tom 
     Daschle, the majority leader, is said by lawmakers and his 
     aides to be committed to trying to move a bill to the Senate 
     floor before the August recess, in hopes of using the 
     Republicans' opposition to the measure against them in fall 
     campaigns.
       Even if that bill survives a filibuster threatened by 
     Senate Republicans, lawmakers and lobbyists say that there is 
     little chance of reconciling the differences between the 
     House and the Senate this year.
       All of Washington has not been paralyzed. Federal 
     regulators--spurred in part by state prosecutors--have become 
     more aggressive on the enforcement front.
       In Congress, meanwhile, legislation to modify pension 
     laws--a response to the enormous losses in the retirement 
     funds of employees at Enron and other troubled companies--
     might have a better chance of passage.
       Still, even lawmakers who favor a tough response to the 
     seeming explosion in business misconduct detect little fervor 
     among voters for a Washington crackdown. Absent a spate of 
     further disclosures, they say, the issues may remain too 
     remote to change many voters' minds.
       ``The politics will be determined by the circumstances,'' 
     said Senator Jon S. Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey and a 
     former top executive of Goldman, Sachs & Company. ``If we 
     continue to see an erosion of the stock market and more cases 
     like Adelphia and Tyco, then it will be significant. If we 
     see less, then it may have less of an impact, because these 
     can become issues that are hard for people like my mom to 
     understand.''
       Other lawmakers, particularly Republicans, say Enron's 
     moment as a galvanizing issue has quickly passed.
       ``The feeding frenzy is pretty much over,'' said Senator 
     Phil Gramm of Texas, the ranking Republican on the banking 
     committee, who has worked closely with industry lobbyists to 
     kill many of the Democrats' proposals. ``People started 
     looking at making all these radical changes and decided there 
     was a real cost involved and that it would not solve the 
     Enron problem.''
       Mr. Gramm said regulators and the marketplace are already 
     correcting the excesses exemplified by Enron and its auditor, 
     Arthur Andersen, relieving Congress of the need to enact 
     comprehensive legislation.
       ``A lot of progress has already been made,'' he said. ``The 
     president has put forward a strong program, the Securities 
     and Exchange Commission is moving forward, and the exchanges 
     are changing their rules. No one who sits on an audit 
     committee will be the same after Enron.'' Mr. Gramm's wife, 
     Wendy, a onetime government regulator who serve on Enron's 
     audit committee, resigned from the company's board last week.
       Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who 
     held hearings on Enron's collapse, agreed with Mr. Gramm's 
     appraisal, but he said it will still vital for Congress to 
     act, even though the prospects for legislation are not 
     strong.
       ``It's all very iffy,'' he said. ``There is a huge rift 
     between where the Senate believes these issues ought to go 
     and what the House has already passed. I don't know if it 
     gets worked out in time.''
       Both Democrats and Republicans have already begun to 
     consider strategies to make the best political use of the 
     issue in the November elections. The Republicans are relying 
     heavily on the rule-making and enforcement actions of the 
     S.E.C.
       On the Democratic side, one idea under discussion by 
     advisers to Senator Daschle is to bundle disparate proposals 
     into one package, making it more efficient to both confront 
     recalcitrant Republicans in the House and make a polticial 
     issue in the fall of the legislation's defeat.
       In any event, politicians and lobbyists say that any change 
     in the accounting treatment of stock options is dead for the 
     year--largely because of the perception that Silicon Valley, 
     where such options are as ubiquitous as the Internet 
     itself, is up for grabs in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
       Proposals have been made to force companies to account for 
     options as a compensation cost--now they are not charged 
     against corporate earnings--and to limit the ability of 
     companies to take tax deductions for issuing options. But 
     technology companies, financial firms and corporate trade 
     groups--with the backing of President Bush--have lobbied 
     lawmakers around the country to maintain the current system.
       For now, lawmakers say, they have trumped the arguments of 
     such people as Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, 
     and the multibillionaire investor Warren E. Buffett that the 
     current treatment of options contributed to corporate 
     overreaching in the 1990's.
       The Bush administration has not been a visible force in the 
     legislative battles, relying instead on likeminded allies--
     notably Senator Gramm--to bottle up the most ambitious 
     legislation. He has met repeatedly with corporate lobbyists 
     and urged them to press sympathetic Democrats or those facing 
     tight races, like Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, Evan Bayh of 
     Indiana and Zell Miller of Georgia, to block legislation from 
     reaching the Senate floor.
       Democrats say that effort appears to have failed and that 
     Senator Paul S. Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland, appears to 
     have the support to get a bill approved by the banking 
     committee. It would sharply curtail the consulting work 
     performed by accounting firms, create a relatively 
     independent oversight board for the accounting profession, 
     require large corporations to rotate their auditors every 
     five years, and impose tighter conflict of interest 
     restrictions on stock analysts than the measure that was 
     passed by the House.
       Mr. Gramm has been working closely with the administration 
     on an alternative measure that does not tighten conflict of 
     interest regulations for analysts or auditing firms. His 
     wife's Enron ties seem to have produced no political pressure 
     on Mr. Gramm--who has announced his intention to retire from 
     the Senate after this year--to shy from the debate.
       The post-Enron proposals prompted scores of industry 
     associations and hundreds of corporations to retain lobbyists 
     and use their own employees to try to weaken or kill the 
     measures. They include the American Institute of Certified 
     Public Accountants, which is dominated by the largest firms. 
     Hundreds of companies, including Oracle and Intel, have 
     fought against changing the treatment of stock options. And 
     many of the largest Wall Street firms have lobbied against 
     changes in the laws governing stock analysts.
       The drift in Congress largely reflects the power of the 
     accounting profession. Accounting firms ranked as three of 
     President Bush's top eight campaign donors in 2000, and over 
     all, the industry made $14.7 million in campaign donations to 
     both Democrats and Republicans during the last election 
     cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The 
     profession has influential members in many congressional 
     districts and has been known to use lawmakers' own 
     accountants to lobby them.
       Pension legislation may stand a better chance in Congress, 
     although its prospects remain cloudy.
       The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus of 
     Montana, is crafting an alternative to a bill by Senator 
     Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, that drew 
     strong opposition from business lobbyists and Republicans.
       On some points, Mr. Baucus's bill is likely to contain 
     provisions similar to those in the House bill, like 
     permitting workers to sell company stock awarded as a 401(k) 
     match three years after they receive it. Senate aides say the 
     bill may also place limits on certain forms of executive 
     compensation. Mr. Daschle is warming to the provisions that 
     are expected to form the Baucus proposal, Senate aides say.
       But they say the Baucus plan is unlikely to include the 
     Kennedy proposal's provision prohibiting most companies from 
     both offering their stock as a 401(k) investment option and 
     using it to match employee contributions. This was designed 
     to keep employees from putting too much retirement money in 
     their own stock, as happened at Enron.
       One major issue that remains unresolved is how to give 
     employees better access to investment advice. Investment 
     management companies have been lobbying to permit firms that 
     administer retirement plans to offer advice to participants. 
     Among other things, they would be permitted to recommend 
     investments for which they could receive a fee.
       Senate aides say the Baucus proposal may instead contain a 
     provision encouraging employers to hire independent firms to 
     provide advice.

                               Exhibit 2

                          [From Business Week]

                  Accounting: Stronger Reforms, Please

       Perhaps the only benefit of a major scandal is that it 
     creates pressure for reforms. Politicians who would otherwise 
     listen to special interests are forced by public pressure to 
     make long-needed changes. Often, the

[[Page S5266]]

     legislative and regulatory changes that follow a scandal can 
     help build a strong foundation for economic growth.
       If you hoped that the Enron/Anderson scandal would provide 
     an opportunity for just those sort of farsighted regulatory 
     improvements, start worrying. There are signs that the Bush 
     Administration, under pressure from the accounting lobby and 
     business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is 
     willing to support only mild changes in the current system. 
     And there's a danger that Congress will acquiesce. The House 
     of Representatives has already passed a very watered-down 
     bill.
       That's wrong. Halfhearted reform is bad for the public, bad 
     for economy, and even bad for the accounting industry, which 
     needs to reestablish its credibility. Instead, we think the 
     best for strong accounting and financial reform is the 
     legislation proposed by Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), 
     chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
       Sarbanes' draft legislation--which is opposed by Senator 
     Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), the ranking GOP member of the Banking 
     Committee, and the Bush Administration--would set up a strong 
     private-sector board to oversee public-company accounting. It 
     would severely limit consulting services that accounting 
     firms can offer the companies they audit. And, not the least, 
     the bill would require CEOs and CFOs to sign their company's 
     audit reports and forfeit a year's worth of bonuses, 
     incentive-based pay, and profits on stock sales if the 
     company has to materially restate its earnings. That would 
     reduce the aggravating sight of CEOs claiming they had no 
     idea what kind of wrongdoing their company was engaged in.
       Equally important, the Sarbanes bill would authorize more 
     money for the Securities & Exchange Commission and permit the 
     agency to hire at least twice as many professionals as the 
     Bush Administration is willing to fund. These additional 
     resources are essential for the SEC to do its regulatory 
     duty. According to a report from the General Accounting 
     Office, the SEC's workload increased by 80% in the 1990s, but 
     its staffing rose only 20%. In 2001, for example, the SEC 
     reviewed only 16% of all annual reports--way below the 
     desirable level.
       No business or profession likes closer oversight. But 
     finding the right balance between markets and regulation is 
     essential for a well-functioning economy. Reform is never 
     easy--but history suggest that it's essential.

                               Exhibit 3

                   [From Business Week, June 3, 2002]

                   A Three-Point Plan for SEC Reform

                           (By Robert Barker)

       A specter is haunting Wall Street--the specter of Main 
     Street retreating from investments and toward savings, going 
     from stocks to CDs. That's why, as the late, lamented bull 
     market nears its 20th anniversary this summer, ``we are on 
     the verge of the greatest overhaul of securities regulation 
     since the SEC was created,'' Securities & Exchange Commission 
     Chairman Harvey Pitt said recently. ``Nothing is off the 
     table.''
       Pitt was addressing an Investor Summit that the called on 
     May 10 in Washington to air investors' concerns and answer 
     questions. I listened, via the Web, to more than three hours 
     of talk, most of it pertinent (box). Yet some specific 
     investor demands need amplification. Here's a short list of 
     concrete fixes. If Wall Street and its regulators can't deal 
     with this simple stuff, their reform effort will have failed:
       FASTER. A CEO today can dump a ton of his company's stock 
     on the first day of the month and need not report it until 
     the 10th day of the next month. Not only should that 
     disclosure be made much sooner--within a day or two of the 
     sale, as now is being discussed--but such insider trades 
     should be disclosed for free via the SEC's Web site, which is 
     not the case today.
       Quarterly and annual corporate reports, now required 45 and 
     90 days, respectively, after each period, will likely be 
     accelerated to 30 and 60 days. That's good, but faster filing 
     should not end there. Mutual-fund holdings should be 
     disclosed at least quarterly instead of every six months, the 
     current rule. Opponents say faster disclosure will make it 
     harder for funds to trade without tipping their hand and 
     ultimately hurting investors. But companies that manage $100 
     million or more--including most fund advisory firms--already 
     must disclose portfolio holdings 45 days after the close of 
     each quarter. Cut that to 30 days, tops. Short positions, now 
     exempt should be required as well as longs.
       FAIRER. The SEC's regulation FD, or Fair Disclosure, seems 
     to have helped put individual investors on a more equal 
     footing with professionals when companies disclose 
     potentially market-moving information. Before its adoption in 
     August, 2000, the public routinely was barred from 
     management's conferencecalls with stock analysts. Not so now. 
     There remains, however, a forbidden zone--the ``road shows'' 
     put on for institutional investors by companies preparing to 
     sell securities, particularly initial public offerings of 
     stock. Just as the SEC was able to invite the public via the 
     Internet to its own recent Investor Summit, investors small 
     as well as large should be asked to attend and pose questions 
     at these pre-IPO presentations. It's one thing to read a 
     prospectus laden with legalese; it's better to hear how 
     management discusses what's in the prospectus.
       PLAINER. Speaking of legalese, regulators have long 
     encouraged the use of ``plain English'' in securities filing. 
     A charitable assessment of this initiative would be to say it 
     has achieved limited success. To any who doubt this, I point 
     to the 749-page proxy statement (including Annexes A through 
     N) filed recently by AT&T. If you own AT&T, you're supposed 
     to use this to decide how you'll vote by July 10 on the 
     company's plan to restructure and merge its cable unit with 
     Comcast. Meanwhile, regulators--while trying to make investor 
     communications clear to more than just the securities bar--
     might also try setting a good example. In SEC lingo, the AT&T 
     proxy is a ``DEFM14A.'' A mutual fund's annual report is an 
     ``N-SAR.'' A tender offer may be a ``13E-4'' or a ``14D-1.'' 
     Our government can do much better.
       Only a fool would expect Washington to solve every problem 
     in today's stock market. As SEC Commissioner Isaac Hunt put 
     it: ``The burden rests with individual investors to research 
     the information and make intelligent investment decisions on 
     their own.'' Fair enough. At the same time, investors don't 
     have to buy what Wall Street is selling. So the burden is 
     equally on Wall Street to show honestly that what it's 
     offering is worth buying. Otherwise, I'd say the intelligent 
     investment decision is a bank CD.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning 
business for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________