baxter sez

so, tom delay has been indicted. did i spell "indicted" correctly? i've never written the word. here's the deal, though: i'm excited about both the delay news and the sec investigation of billy frist.

Looked at in an objective manner, it makes perfect sense to me that frist would unload his stock in preparation for that soon-to-be presidential bid. And here's the clencher: it makes perfect sense to me that he would sell that stock before it took a nose dive. It's a dishonest move, but if my brother were the ceo of america's largest hospital chain i would expect him to tell me to get outta there when the time was right.

WE ALL KNOW that this is exactly what happened. Frist's family said "Sell now" and he did it. the fact that he says he didn't have any inside information is total crap. c'mon, man. you know you had information! admit it. most of all us would have done the same thing.

the problem is this: it's a matter of scope. If a regular joe were to steal--and let's not even make it a moral thing like feeding the family--but say, a man stole a six pack of beer, he'd go to jail. he'd ride in the back of a police car with his hands cuffed. his fingers would be printed. he would sit in a cold jail cell and wait to get out on bail--if he can afford it. eventually he'd probably wear a little orange suit around, maybe picking up someone else's beer can off the side of the highway. afterward, he'd be lucky to get another job.

now, how much is a six pack of beer worth? mostly, beer thieves aren't the sam adams kinda crowd. they usually go for simnpler fare like falls city or something. so, what? like 6 bucks?

now. how much did Fristy make off with? let me not even blow it out of proportion and just say 50 million dollars.

something's gotta be done...


a second matter:

above i said that "i'd expect my brother to tell me to get out when the time was right." and i would. would i do anything about it? i'm not sure.

recently, when alison and i sold our house, we had an opportunity to make some extra money by doing a slightly dishonest thing. the short version is this: we got a late bid, a higher bid, after we'd told someone else that the house was theirs. no
papers had been signed. it wouldn't have been illegal--just sketchy.

alison and i fretted over this. some of you will remember phone calls asking you what we should do. in the end, we did the right thing. i feel good about that decision. i'm even sorry that we hesitated. The rub is this: something i discovered in that situation is that the morals that govern business are not the morals that govern day to day decisions. when it comes to money folks can get a little squishy. money makes different decisions than the rest of the world.

this is wrong. this is not how things should be. frist's stock was in a "blind trust." he was not to know what was going on there. there is an absolutely fabulous chance that he knew something. if he did know something, and then acted on it, then he is a cheap and weak man. i pity him.