One might expect a lot of news when the nation's top CEOs, the Senate majority leader and the head of the New York Stock Exchange get together.
Not this time.
Except for a three-hour press conference, the recent meeting of the Business Council at the Boca Raton Resort & Club was kept secret. Even reporters who participated in sessions are mum.
The Feb. 19-21 event hosted the likes of conservative columnist George Will, NYSE Chairman Dick Grasso, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and attorney generals from Iowa and Pennsylvania.
Panel discussions focused on business leadership, corporate litigation brought on by states, health care costs and the future of retirement benefits.
But don't click on CNBC or pick up the Wall Street Journal to find out what happened.
Their journalists were there, but they agreed not to report on the event.
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo and the Wall Street Journal's editor for management news, Joann Lublin, were invited to participate in panel discussion before a ballroom full of CEOs.
But the journalists, along with their fellow panelists and attending CEOs, agreed to a code of silence that the powerful and private Business Council requires.
The organization counts the heads of Wal-Mart, General Electric, General Motors, Dell Computer, Sprint, Bank One, Hewlett-Packard and Merck & Co. among its 125 members.
In the 1990s the US stock market and its various bubbles formed the casino economy.
Now we have The Sopranos' economy — honor among thieves. Specifically, conservative thieves.
