A very good question indeed. How are they being screwed? well...

A very good question indeed. How are they being screwed? well the extent of the rort that destroyed a company worth several billions of dollars through internal graft and theft. yes wanna hear the expfression again? Theft for which there has been no accountability and no explanation.

Why does that matter and how does that answer your question? well that depends on who you are. If yuo think that $20 being reduced to $4.50 is beneficial to your portfolio then it does not matter.

But to the vast majority who still await an explanation thats being screwed. Screwed because not even the government has had the decency to order a probe. Maybe Howard would think it outside his mandate, but what about the regulator? David Knott for starters?

The Accounting forms of Arthur Anderson (now defunct) KPMG, PwC and Delloits all have some answering to do and will not do it till they are summoned to come forward with the results of their audits on the company, their recommendations on some of its failed transactions and the quality assurance they provided to purchases and sales. These were not independent at the widest stretch of the imagination.

There is a bombshell about to explode. It cnocerns the 'FRailed' Duke Group from the late 1980's early 1990s.

Here the judge hearing the matter in the Supreme court of South Australia was a party to some of the transactions that put this company into liquidaiton when it should not have gone into liquidaiton. He stepped down or the matter was removed to the books of another judge.

The liquidator has been living on a $150,000 per annum handout for the past 12 years for no reason. I mean no legitimate reason other than his own flawed perceptions of right and wrong and professional conduct.

The method the accounting firms used to perpetrate this fraud agaisnt shareholders of this company, a merchant bank included the use of Hambros the British merchant bank now acquired by SGS.

The lies, the deceit, the fraudulent statements of the major accounting firms involved continue to be applied to the major trading banks by the same firms of accountants at the expense of an ageing population dependant on their professional integrity to be custodians of their wealth in retirement.

I will provide a detailed commentary on this particular case during the comming weeks as it exemplifies the theft of public property by Charterd Accountants, Company Directors (Both Ignorant and the educated), Lawyers and the courts for poltically expedient purposes. Corruption.

You had better be interested. If you are a gambler using the stock market to ply your habbit thats different.

AMP cannot be merged. It will be absorbed if it must, to hide a corporate crime of enormous dimensions that is unprecedented in our history. It is perhaps the only crime of its magnitude committed by pillars of society who may well getaway with it. Any absorption by Westpac if they take it will merely be an accoutning entry that will soak up some of the blood on the floor. Westpac shareholders will be made to believe they are getting value for money. The support levels of buying in the ensuing months will ensure that. The amortisation of that Loss will take a few years to realise gradually. For that, the government and courts will have o turn the other way. And there are legitimate ways of ensuring that. If AMP goes down like it should, like a Led Zeppelin, our dollar and economy will reflect that loss. It has all sorts of implications.

BUT WAIT FOR THE DUKE FRAUD MATTER. IT WILL DEMONSTRATE THE LEVEL OF CORRUPTION, UNPROFESSIONAL IF NOT OUTRIGHT CRIMINAL CONDUCT BY LIQUIDATORS, AUDITORS AND THE CHARTERED PROFFESSION IN GENERAL IN AUSTRALIA. THE STORY WILL GO WORLDWIDE. IT WON'T BE RESTRICTED TO THE LIMITED PAGES OF HOTCOPPER.