SportKite1 wrote:

> >But what about the honest people who lost a substantial portion of their hard
> >earned savings because of her crooked dealings?
>
> Hmmm...I was always under the impression that playing the stocks was a gamble
> to begin with. If one invests their life's savings solely into a stock such as
> this one to begin with, I'd say that person was a fool and deserved what they
> got.

The stock market is indeed a gamble. In fact, a stock broker I know once told me
that if I had money to invest I would probably be better off to take it to the
race track and bet on the horses.

Never the less, the stock market is supposed to be an honest system whereby
companies can raise money through the issuance of stocks, and when the company
succeeds and makes a profit, the value of the shares goes up. It is enough of a
risk to invest in a company without a proven track record, but we seem to have a
whole new generation of people in business who seem to be more interested in
manipulating stock values and screwing their investors out of their money than
they are in running a profitable business.