An open letter to Scott MacNealy

I've read with interest your comments regarding new SEC requirements that officers in corporations actually attest to the validity of the information contained. I've got a few thoughts if you can take time out from sniping at Bill Gates.

First, I don't find Mr. Bush to be particularly anti-business, in fact I find him to be the most pro-business president since, well, Bush was in office. It seems pretty clear that the last thing Dubya wants to talk about are corporate ethics, because when he does, we can hear the skeletons rattling around in his and Mr. Cheney's closets, desparate to get out.

What's driving Mr. Bush is a frenzied crowd of investors who believed company filings and then lost everything they'd invested. The officers of those companies never attested to the validity of their filings. Instead they bought corporate jets to fly them around; they schmoozed with their executive peers; they talked like WWF contenders; they got more and more options; they got soon-to-be-forgiven "loans" from their companies to exercise those options. But they never looked to see how they'd gotten the stock price to go up, and they never minded how their companies were run. Made out like bandits, but as I said, they've created this angry crowd of investors.

Scotty, what you've got to understand is that no matter how white your teeth are and how funny your Bill Gates jokes may be, we don't trust you. Don't sign those forms; tell us, "I don't really know what my company is up to."It's not the SEC you have to worry about, it is the price of the Sun Microsystems stock.

James Blasius