Calculating spin: While President Bush's televised speech in Cincinnati last night was rich in rhetoric, it contained little that was new. The Bush administration wants to keep everybody happy, both at home and abroad, while it reassembles its military machine in the Gulf and gets ready for war.

Saddam Hussein is a 'murderous tyrant' who can be compared to Stalin, said Bush. Nothing much for US voters, gearing up for midterm elections on 5 November, to disagree with there.

Saddam Hussein may have weapons of mass destruction which he may use against America. Nothing much for Congress, expected later this week to give Bush authority to go to war, to disagree with either.

Significantly, the Bush pr people, while touting the speech as important, failed to ask TV networks for air time. Neither ABC, CBS nor NBC showed the speech live.

In Wisconsin, regulars in a bar watched the Green Bay Packers on TV and didn't even know that the President was on. [Wisconsin Post-Crescent].

Possibly the Bush spinmeisters figured out from their focus group surveys that, as reported in the CBS/New York Times poll, most Americans think Bush is concentrating too much on Iraq when he should be concentrating on domestic economic issues. [CBS].

Bush did give a new definition of 'regime change'. If Iraq cooperated with weapons inspectors, if it disarmed, if it behaved decently towards its minority groups, it would be making a change that would constitute a change in the Iraqi regime and war would be averted, he suggested. Saddam may be finished, but his generals have a choice.

Bush's (relatively) conciliatory language gives the UN Security Council the opportunity to meet him half way and agree to a new, tougher UN resolution.

And then it's back on the road to war.

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Away from the war: Over half of Americans say President Bush is more interested in protecting the interests of big corporations than ordinary Americans, according to a new CBS/New York Times poll. Some 56% say the national economy is in bad shape. [CBS].

And, perhaps not surprisingly, following a summer of revelations about corporate sleaze, executives are turning to private security companies and James Bond-style gadgets to keep angry ex-employees and stockholders at bay. [Yahoo].

Former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow did do the corporate 'perp walk' last week, was taken in handcuffs to the courthouse. But, say legal experts, people want more than a simple application of the law; they want justice. [NY Times].

Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times cites two recent reports that show that the corporations are still run by the business-as-usual crowd.

According to analysis by the Investor Responsibility Research Center, accountancy firms continue to earn more from consultancy than auditing work. Given that they often provide both services to their clients, it's sometimes difficult for them to ask questions about unusual accounting practices.

According to Weiss Ratings, analysts continue to give favourable recommendations on companies doing business with their firms. Again, there's a conflict of interests.

Morgenson says: 'If corporate executives and Wall Street sharpies want investors' respect, they must prove they are doing something to make dubious practices a thing of the past. They should stop denying the problem and quit trying to circumvent change by calling in chits from their friends in Washington.' [NY Times].

Meanwhile, a US Senate report finds that Enron collapsed because of failure on the part of the body charged with ensuring that US corporations behave.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) failed to review Enron's financial statements. It gave the energy giant a special accounting waiver. It exempted it from federal accounting requirements. [Forbes].

Ralph Nader, former Green Party presidential candidate, spoke to angry investors near the New York Stock Exchange last week.

'We're gathered here because we're concerned that not enough is being done about the most gigantic grand larceny episode in American history.'

According to Nader, millions of Americans have been robbed of billions of dollars in stock and pension savings.

Corporate scandals have cost American workers over $175bn in retirement savings. Pension losses from the Enron bankruptcy to February comes to $1.69bn.

He wants a 12-step corporate reform programme. It includes a crackdown on corporate corruption, better protection for workers and investors and an end to corporate deregulation. [BBC].

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