Slashdot Mirror
WorldCom Fraud Doubles
Silvaran writes "No, this isn't a repeat story. WorldCom claims another $3.3 billion accounting error. That's about $7 billion, for those that are counting. Wish I had that kind of cash to miscalculate on my income tax forms." There's also a NYT story. I love how the news outlets are saying, "error", "irregularity", "problem", as if this was all some sort of tragic accident, instead of laying out the obvious truth, "criminal fraud committed with full knowledge it was a crime".
At this rate, I'll never be able to unload this stock.
My biggest feat at night? That the same thing is going to happen to the telecommunications company where *I* work.
Fuck.
I love how the news outlets are saying, "error", "irregularity", "problem",
Those just happen to be the industry terms. The accounting has terms just like the computer industry. And considering that WorldCom executives are being arrested, it is pretty obvious that fraud is involved also. Just another slashdot editor adding his two cents to a post instead of just posting it.
...that you never hear of any accounting 'errors' that make the company look less wealthy than it is?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
At this rate and with all the companies they are investigating, the government is going to single handily destroy the US economy. Sure some company's are lying about their books...but let's look at the governmental books and see how many places we can find fraud there!!
"A billion here, a billion there - pretty soon it adds up to real money" - one site attributes that to Everett Dirksen
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
So theres another $50.6 billion down the hole, too.
What I don't get about telecom, esp. the telecom in my area, QWest, is how the hell they are rolling in money. My phone bill is outrageous... and they have a monopoly in the region. I know they're getting at least $40 out of every person with a phone in the midwest... where the hell does all that money go?
As in 3,300,000,000 $'s, bucks credits ?
You know, I've heard about calculating errors, but
3.3 bill, is not a calculation eror, thats darn gross negligence at beast, villanous stupidity at slightly worse, and punishable by long term jail at worst..
There are countries that make less money than that on their national budgets.
I sit here, and the only way I can react to this is with a slightly disbelieving laugh.. It's so far out it's almost funny in a slight Twilight Zoney way.
Venlig Hilsen / Regards
John Hinge - shayera /
"Buffy I love you... Please God No!" S
It's going to be interesting to see if/how the US Govt steps in to support WorldCom customers if this finally takes WC down. They do carry a lot of internet traffic.
The justice department needs to stop being a bunch of whores and realize that "limited liability" has to do with financial, not criminal liability. Fraud is fraud, theft is theft. Put them in the same cell with a guy doing 5 years for forging a check. It makes me sick.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
1. Used a Pentium to do the calculations
2. Used Excel to do the calculations
I think other posters have already mentioned that they never seem to make mistakes the other way round.
"Oh, crap, we forgot to carry the 1 when we added up the revenue, now we made an extra billion last year. Shit - we'd better give all the regular line employees a pay raise before our headquarters collapses under the weight of all the extra cash"
Like that would ever happen......
The spin by the media is guided by the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty. Thus the "nice" choice of words for the WorldCom bastards who are responsible for this "alleged" fraud.
Worldcom's CFO is already in jail awaiting trial and the company is going bankrupt. The hotest story I am hearing on the streets here in DC is the fact that no one from Enron is in jail yet. This will increasingly stink up the Bush administration since his staff has so many Enron ties. Enron was Ashcroft's largest campaign supporter. Congress passed laws making rules tougher for future wrongdoers but it is not clear to me that the rules needed to be made stronger. Imclone, Worldcom and Adelphia C?Os are already in jail under current laws. Why haven't the laws been applied to anyone at Enron?
I wish Ebbers could get the death penalty for perpretrating this heinous economic crime. When considering all the lives and livelihoods trashed, he deserves worse than death.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Maybe the American press are skirting the issue - but the British press certainly aren't: try
The Guardian ("fraud" appears 5 times) and The Times which even uses the word "scam".
Zack
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
the obvious truth, "criminal fraud committed with full knowledge it was a crime".
We call this Libel / Slander.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
I can just see it now...
"
Top Story of the day! Today WorldCom states that indeed, it has never earned a profit at all, explaining that what they had previously thought was only an error of about $7 billion, actually was much more.
'Apparently after some more thorough investigation, not only has WorldCom never turned a profit, but all figures that could have been called profit were in personal bank accounts in the Swiss. We found that 90% of all documents pertaining to the company were also forged... leading us to believe that the very existance of WorldCom maybe fraudulent,' explains an investigator.
Another investigator merely states, 'It's just a front used to collect money. Now they owe everyone everything that they've ever taken in.'
"
The reason for this might be that news outlets are small parts of much larger companies, who also happen to be vulnerable to the rise and fall of the market. If you take a look at any of your major news sources, you will find that they are also fully-owned subsidiaries of large megacorps. Controlling the spin on the stock market in general is in the best interest of those who are directly affected by the public's confidence in investing in corporate stock.
For the most part, corporate news has long since quietly renounced its role as public watchdog, and is now little more than a marketing arm for its new masters.
-- lk t lv ll th vwls t f wrds. T svs lts f tm t wrt bt ts pn n th ss t rd nd mks m lk lk cmplt dpsht.
The IRS threatened to CASTRATE me for misscalcuating 33 bucks on my Mass. income taxes. Apparently though if your a full time accountant for Worldcom you can let 3.3 BILLION slide for 3 years!!!?!?!?!? wtf?
These fraudulent practices are just making every investor cringe and become hesitant to invest in the market. There should be a law against any act which deliberately causes injury to the reputation of Wall Street and makes the general population lose confidence in the system. Laws against frauds are obviously not enough. We already have defamation laws for damaging an individual's reputation... However, the impact of these acts (Enron, Worldcom, others to follow) will be felt by millions for years and nothing will prevent other financial giants from doing the same in the future. A new law could simply be an extra deterrent.
A year ago, if you had invested 1000$ in beer you would have more money returning the bottles today than if you bought Enron Stocks then and sold them today.
Worldcom is based in Mississippi? Well why didn't they just say so.
The missing money? It's buried in mason jars out behind the shed. Sheesh.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
While Dubya may be a doofus, he at least knows how to put his finger to the wind, much like his old man did, in the past he was leaning off his buddy Ken, but now that the winds have shifted, Kenny and company are just waiting in the on deck circle.
What I've been reading about the whole Enron thing, it's not a matter of figuring out who the bad guys are, but unravelling everything enough to have a clear picture to take to a grand jury. The "accounting practices" of WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia, etc. are pretty blatant. Enron takes this to a whole new level.
Imagine a 4500 machine network wired by a pack of monkeys hopped up crack, crystal meth, and mescaline, and you'll have a pretty good idea of how convoluted the shell game that Enron was running was. Ken Lay and his boys are going down, it's just going to take awhile to untangle the wiring.
Not that Dubya wouldn't cover for him if he could, but that would be total political suicide.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
I defy anyone to come in here and deny they ever miscounted change.
I realize that $3.3 billion sounds like a lot to the average person..
You have to remember that we aren't talking about REAL money here
I did not have fraud with that corporation.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
About forty years ago, it looked like Lockheed was going to go bankrupt. The stock fell from $60 to $3, which was below par (i.e. breaking up the company and selling off the assets would have recovered more money than the stock was selling for). The problem was that Lockheed wasn't just a defense contractor, it was the defense contractor, and during the height of the cold war, to boot. They couldn't be allowed to go bankrupt.
So the government bailed them out.
Then, some years later, there was a little problem at a generating plant owned by General Public Utilities (GPU). You might not have heard of GPU but you've heard of the plant: Three Mile Island. GPU stock took a hit, as you might imagine. In fact it looked like it might go broke. The problem was that it was a utility, which means it was a monopoly. If it went broke the lights went out over a fair stretch of countryside. That couldn't happen.
So the government bailed them out.
Now, my father saw both of those coming. He bought Lockheed stock at fire-sale prices because he knew that they couldn't be allowed to go broke. He cried because he couldn't afford more. He made out like a bandit.
When GPU started to go under, he bought all the GPU stock he could. And this time, he could afford more. He made out like a bandit. So well, in fact, that he assured himself a comfortable retirement. He's quite conservative, and told me ruefully, "I always preached the values of thrift and economy. Now I'm comfortable in my old age, but it isn't due to any of that. Hmph."
Then the Seattle public utility, through a boring series of blunders, started to go broke. They couldn't be allowed to go broke, for the same reasons that GPU couldn't and Lockheed couldn't.
So the government...said "Hey! Wait just a darn minute here!" And didn't bail them out.
And they went broke. And the lights stayed on.
Ditto when California started having rolling blackouts. Big raspberries from the Fed, because the Shrub knows California wouldn't vote for him if he was rolling out the red carpet in front of Jesus Christ for the Second Coming. Much stick-waving, stunningly bad contracting, and shouting, but the lights came back on and stayed that way.
The days of government bailouts are over.
Does it go on forever?
their old pentium, ;-)
they would never had such errors'
I swear your honnor! I only rounded to the nearest decimal!
I'd rather be sailing...
is being able to get my self to bed after drinking so much damned coffee
Strangely, Michael, it is a convention of the "old media" that one does not refer to someone as having committed a "criminal fraud committed with full knowledge it was a crime" until that person has been found guilty in a court of having done so.
For Christ's sake. Why don't you just go the whole hog and shout "Get a rope! Let's lynch the bastards now!".
If slashdot posters started referring to Michael's "libellous editorial comments committed with full knowledge that he was libelling someone" rather than "stupid remarks", "arrogant editorialising" or whatever, you'd be out of a job in no time.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
....companies like Worldcom defraud shareholders.....and then Bush gives them a tap on the ass and tells them not to do it again....meanwhile they're under the table sucking his dick.
There was never much right with "corporate America" to start with.....but these days there sure is something wrong with corporate America. Time for some serious action and accountability.
-psyco
Does anyone out there KNOW all the names of the holding companies and companies Worldcom controls? If I have any control in my company or in my life, and they are a part of it... I want their product out!
It is not that I don't think the company will stick around. I think that they will take a $7. something billion dollar write off, smile at all of us, and go back to business as usual. Just like I expect all the other companies to do. Restructure and keep on moving. They have to much cash invested in to many politicians to do other wise. I even heard a audio bite on NPR this morning where a Worldcom PR spin doctor stated that everything was fine and no one would lose any services.
I want to lose their services!!! I do not want to have any dealings with a company who involves itself in illegal activities. If the person you bought gas from at the local corner gas station was found to be "lining" his pockets with your money, would you go back and buy gas there? This sort of unethical behavior is starting to be mulled over by the popular press as "ok and not to worry. Everything will be fine. Nothing to see here." Uhh, NO.
I plan on taking my families' and my business' money to another gas station thank you. I don't plan on paying the unethical or immoral gas station attendant any more if I can help it.
The wages of sin are unreported and back taxes are hell to pay.
While this is god awful, there is a small silver lining for them. They paid taxes on that 6 billion dollars of false income. The federal government will now have to refund them that money. Futhermore, since these losses occured so far back, they are unlikely to effect the current fiscal status of the company. They may very well be doing this recoup taxes; in other words, they are going to get a nearly a billion dollar windfall from this restatement.
Oh come on the explanation is incredibly simple.
We just finally found out where Intel unloaded all those old defective Pentium 90 chips.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
broke the internet camels back.
Speaking of taxes...
I'm guessing WorldCom gets back their tax paid on their overreported income?
If so, it's really to their advantage to dig up as much overreporting as they possibly can, now that it's out of the bag and they can't hurt any worse for it.
Maybe they can find enough overreporting that they will be able to claim a profit again this year... after classifying their tax refund as income, of course...
-- Terry
From the article at news.com.com:
So... $3.3x10^9 + $3.3x10^9 > $7x10^9 ??
WTF kind of math are these auditors using???
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Why hasn't a special prosecuter been appointed like Starr was for Clinton's minor Whitewater dealings. Bush basically took money out of peoples 401k by using the corporate jet of a company that was failing
Free cell phone tracking
(1) Why isn't every single member of Worldcom's Board of Directors in jail right now? So its okay to throw some kid in jail for cracking some piss poor encryption on a PDF file - but its not so okay to throw some suit in jail that knowingly stole billions upon billions of dollars from investors?
(2) Why hasn't Worldcom's stock been delisted? I mean comeon now - I think its about time to hang up the saddle and go on home because this horse isn't getting back up.
(3) Why is Worldcom being allowed to write off 50 billion dollars (as mentioned earlier) in addition to the 7 billion they already stole? I think Bernie Ebbers and friends better get out to the street corner and start "sucking it up" so he can play these people BACK.
(4) And once again - WHY AREN'T THESE FSCKING IDIOTS IN JAIL? If I bounce a check for 100 bucks I'm sure to face the consequences - yet if they "steal" 7 billion dollars its okay?
J
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Thank you Mr. "I hate represenative (i.e. the best kind of) democracy." I'm sure things would be so better in your Tyranny of the People world.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Nah, they forgot to convert from imperial to metric and caused the entire company to crash.
Ooops.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
Send those bastards to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
From a Robert Novak column:
"Through all of President Bill Clinton's last two years in office, the announced level of before-tax profits was at least 10 percent too high--a discrepancy rising close to 30 percent during the last presidential campaign. Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year, while in fact it was declining."
Yes, thats an 'error' of 150 billion, and the clown in charge of the prediction still has his job. Do economists and accountants have any standards?
It's mostly like a uniform anywhere else. I'm not a slave; I can leave work anytime I want, and I do get paid for *working* here. Then again I don't wear button down shirts every day. I usually wear khaki's and a golf shirt, but that's pretty much what I always wear when I'm not working out.
The idea is just to look professional and conforming to business protocol. Working in a corporation is all about business protocol, and looking like you are focused on your work is part of it. In a conforming situation like functioning in a corporate environment, wearing a uniform is part of being focused on your work; Just like working at mcdonalds, a local restuarant where you have to wear a white shirt and black pants, or a school that has uniforms.
Do you have some other group of people you'd recommend we corporate slaves dress like? It's just one group of conformity to the other. I'd rather just put on some clothes and get on with my life instead of worrying about my material shell appearance. There are much more important issue to address corporations and their effect on society and people than how they make people dress.
Then again, I've never been one to compromise my success or enjoyment of life by being rebelliously self expressive through what I wear. I just don't think the trade off is worth it. I'd rather speak my mind and influence other people's opinions than dressing like a punk, especially when I like the clothes I wear.
This is my sig. The post is over.
In related news, the federal government has reversed the Greene decision, and is putting the pieces of AT&T back together. Government sources are quoted as saying "What the heck were we thinking!?!?".
-- Terry
"Aww crap, I forgot to carry the 1!"
Wouldn't that be "I forgot to carry the 1... 8 times!"
In addition to the other explanations offered in this thread, I'd like to offer my own...
"We used the same calculators that NASA used to convert imperial to metric."
I know that the Worldcom issue is not quite this simple. Worldcom was writing off operating expenses as capital investments. I also can't believe that I am advocating higher taxes, but...
During this bubble, companies were doing everything that they could to overstate earnings.
I do exactly the opposite with my company. I hire a sharp accountant to make my profits legally look as small as possible. I have to write a big fat check to the IRS at the end of the year for my profits. I certainly wouldn't want to overstate them.
It also seems to me that if I was pulling this kind of stuff I would be in a federal pound you in the ass type of prison already.
Nice copy/paste, jagoff.6 &cid=4038 371
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3769
Shifting revenue around is hardly a new practice. In fact, everyone's favourite company has done it...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Go on, then, explain to the court how the capitalisation of local line costs in de novo telecom operations is the wrong accounting policy. Then prove that it is so obviously the wrong accounting policy that no reasonable man could have thought otherwise. Then prove that the particular officers of WorldCom who are up for trial were the ones responsible for the adoption of this policy, rather than auditors, consultants, other managers. Then prove that they adopted it with the intent to commit criminal fraud. Then, maybe, you'll have some credibility in your glib assertion that the defendant is guilty without need for a trial. This is a complex case, and the assertion that the defendants are guilty of criminal fraud (rather than of some lesser offence of the kind generically described as "accounting irregularities") is not supportable.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
What bugs me the most about all this is how people still don't seem to make a big deal about it. Here's a good way to think:
Imagine every crime that has been committed against you that cost you money. This can include having your bicycle stolen, your car stolen for a joyride and crashed into a wall... your house vandalized and your stereo ripped off, your credit card number hijacked, your wallet taken in a mugging, etc. Whatever cost you money. Now, try to remember the anger. Try to remember how pissed off you were. How much you would've loved to bash the punk's face in with a brick.
Now listen.
Corporate crime has stolen about twice that from you, and other investors and tax payers. You are an invesor if you have a retirement plan. You are a taxpayer if you have a job. Even if you don't in either case, your sales taxes go to governments, and governments are effected by the stock market. The total monetary cost per year of street crime in the United States is well below the total amount of money lost due to white collar corporate crime. That is money you should have in your assets right now.
The thief, the mugger, at least they have some balls about it - if you catch them, you could very well bash their faces in with a brick, then get them arrested by the police (who kick the living crap out of them if they try to run) and then end up in a federal "pound me in the ass" prison for quite a long time.
The white collar criminal is not caught. If he is, his company gets fined something around 1% of their earnings this quarter. If he personally is caught, he just gets sent to a minimum security country club for a few months.
And people don't seem very mad about this.
This country needs some new people in government to weed out all the bad crab grass strangling the public. There's absolutely no way I'm gonna vote for any politician who contributed to this f0cked up situation.
"Battle No Against Flesh, But of Powers and Principalities, and wickedness\corruption in high places." "The love of money is the root of all evil." "A Little Power Corrupts a little, A Lot of Power Corrupts a LOT." and my personal favorite quote: "WorldCom and Enron are like a well made pryamid scheme. Only the top get rich and once they get rich they'll strip the pryamid and build a private Cairo from the stone.." (Umm long ago the limestone was stripped from the Giza pryamids and the stone was reported to have been used in building parts of Cairo)
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Income smoothing was a problem for Microsoft too.
Here's a Seattle Times article talking about the settlement.
The only thing is, the government refused to own up to their part in the whole scandal: they assisted and turned a blind eye to their corporate and banking misconduct for years, and took kickbacks and bribes from all the parties involved. I was over there during the whole time that the IMF was helping them out of their economic hole, and they called the downturn and rebuilding of their economy "The IMF Era", as if their problems were all the IMF's fault.
Are they better off now than they were? Heck yeah. Have the root causes been addressed? Nope, just gone underground for a few years. Mark my words, in five to ten years, the ROK will go through the whole thing all over again.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
'another $3.3 billion' doesn't mean that the previous amount was exactly $3.3 billion, and it doesn't mean that there was only one previous amount.
Johan Veenstra
you know, while americans try to play polititcs with this, here's a thought to consider. the us needs investment from foreign countries. my pension is invested in us stocks and yet i live in ireland. however once the market creeps up a bit, that money gets invested elsewhere.
the us gov't continues to be more and more business friendly, and yet in reality that's bad for business in most cases. if i as an investor don't see that changing, i don't put my money in. and i'm not alone.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me...
I love how the TODO list mentions, "fix issues with Save As dialog", as if this was all some sort of tragic accident, instead of laying out the obvious truth, "this crap application just wiped three complete pages from my document!"
Right on the money.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
The $50bil is probably being charged to a write down in goodwill. (Keep me honest here accountants!) Goodwill is the subjective value Company A places on Company B above or below the price they actually paid. Its sort of funny money anyway, so its not like $50bil in cash went out the door or anything.
Can anyone say The Cayman Islands?
It is theft, pure and simple. You give them money so that they will grow a company for profit, and then with no regulation to watch that money, they funnel it to some tax haven and then lie to you about what it is doing. It is no different than paying for something in the mail and it never arrives, because the jerks have already skipped out with the cash.
Either way, if they go to "golf prison" or not, they come out and they will have money to play with for the rest of their lives.
*AND NOW MY POLITICAL SOAPBOX* (please disregard if you do not agree)
Please don't vote Republican again because we are in the middle of a "terrorist crisis." Its not good for you... Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public.
This is what happens when you take all of the restrictions off of business. I am not for restriced business, but I am defineitely not for what they have been getting away with. If they are doing this to people who spend their paychecks on a better future with this company, then what do you think they are doing with the environment? What about a little safety regulations to protect an employee?
Let's keep in mind that our Republican friends constantly say that they want to "run the Government like a business."
The last time I checked, that meant charging too much, underpaying the working stiffs, and playing golf on the profits for the handfull of winners. Good luck.
...they'd blame this on the Pentium floating-point bug.
:wq
Are we talking about the same Times? I think my friend is referring to the London Times here.
Please give us some examples of the "well-documented history of sensationalizing " the Times indulges in.
Certainly the New York Times has a more glamourous, brash look to it, the last time I read it (last over in February).
I have to agree that the UK tabloid press are some of the most appalling rags in Europe, perhaps it is these you refer to?
The Guardian is mildly left of centre which would probably annoy most of the slashdot US readership from a political perspective, but hardlt a gutter rag, and The Times is one of the most establishment, conservative papers around.
Looking forward to hearing your examples...
In the USA, there is such a thing known as due process. Basically it means "innocent until proven guilty". I love it how media outlets, even such as Slashdot, provide arm chair judgers and arm chair jurors a platform for "Trial by Media".
For anyone saying "criminal fraud committed with full knowledge it was a crime" without fully knowing all the details in the case, is cutting short the defendants due process. Perhaps you should have stated it "Alleged criminal fraud committed with full knowledge it was a crime".
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
MCI always paid as late as possible, and I heard that Worldcom often simply didn't pay many of its creditors.
The funny part about this is that last year they were looking for ways to save money - and decided to go with cheaper coffee in one of their largest facilities.
So, Worldcom failed to integrate the sixty companies that they acquired - and their operations were bleeding money like an arterial wound. Additionally, they had overspent on MCI by about $10 billion, and had $7 billion +
hidden in accounting gimmicks --- but thank god they saved $400 a year on cheap coffee.
just another 'decision made at internet speed' I suppose.
Here's what I don't understand. This kind of crap is EXACTLY why we have "auditors" who are supposed to validate a company's books. We've got all kinds of news stories about bad CEOs going to jail. I don't have a problem with that. I have a HUGE problem with the fact the no auditing company's CEO has been sent away yet. The accounting companies conspired to hide all these losses and artificially inflate these bogus companies stocks.
I used to work for a Big Five accounting firm (not Andersen) and I did a variety of work -- tax consulting, mostly, but also some auditing. I am both an accountant and an attorney. I have left the tax world for the general practice of law, and despite all the lawyer jokes to the contrary, I feel "cleaner" about what I do now (mostly chasing ambulances). I would never have guessed that if you asked me about it when I graduated from law school lo those many years ago.
/. readers from other countries, I hope you aren't getting too giddy about this. The simple fact is that many, many studies have been done about transparency of financial reporting and business ethics. The US is always at or near the top of those studies in having transparent accounting/reporting and having a reasonably honest system. In the present, only a tiny, tiny fraction of publically-traded companies have been affected by this, and I think the worst is over. I think overseas investors should wonder about what is being concealed on the books of some of their companies. Japan's banks' problems are widely known, but I throw that out there as an example. I will bet that it is not just the US affected by this -- the US is simply the most prominent place where it is going on. The fact that many people around the world like to watch the US get it in the crotch from time to time doesn't hurt the publicity, either. Especially after so much nationalistic chest-thumping from the US about its place in the world lately. I understand the schaden freude, but I don't necessarily think that the smugness associated with it is really very wise.
Here is my spin on the Worldcom situation:
1. Auditors will never, I repeat, never, catch outright fraud at companies they audit if the company is actively trying to deceive the auditors. Auditors look at only a fraction of financial records of a company, and if certain transactions are concealed or are outright misrepresented by the audited company's employees, it is extremely difficult to get to the bottom of the situation. Auditing is, reduced to its bare essence, statistical sampling of transactions with the sampling focused on major items and a certain percentage of the "ordinary" transactions. At a large company like Worldcom, it would be relatively simple for the CFO to completely fool the auditors (most CFOs come from the public accounting world and know very well the game that they are trying to cheat at).
2. Audits do not pass on the quality of a business, they simply try to determine if a company has followed "generally accepted" financial accounting practices as promulgated by the financial accounting standards board FASB - located in CT, home to Joe Lieberman who fought vigorously an attempt to reform accounting back in 1995, btw -- it's not just Harvey Pitt and the GOP Enron cronies at work here - the whole system is rotten. Shareholders who expect auditors to let them know a business model sucks will be waiting a long time and they are exhibiting pathological ignorance.
3. Of all the big accounting problems rearing their heads, a disproportionate number are coming out of Andersen audits. KPMG, PWC, E&Y, and C&L are all mostly avoiding the maelstrom. Why? The culture at Andersen? Leadership at Andersen? I honestly do not know, but it is striking that Andersen is auditing most of the problem children of the stock market.
I know people at Andersen at all levels who are smart, diligent, and honest. I have worked with many folks from Andersen. People move from Big Five firm to Big Five firm all the time, so there's no inherent "you are evil if you audit for Andersen" rule. I am at a complete loss to explain why Andersen is in the neighborhood at the time all these arsons are taking place, but it seems peculiar.
4. The changes recently enacted by the Congress and GW prohibiting consulting and auditing to be done by the same firm will do bupkus to stop accounting problems. The biggest source of accounting fraud results from the company misleading auditors. "Aren't the outside auditors professionals? Can't they see through the frauds?" The simple answer is, no, they can't under most circumstances where they are being wilfully mislead by the audited company. Outside audits are simply not as good a method for identifying fraud as the public perception makes them out to be.
5. Something I have seen pushed hard by accounting firms is what is called an accounting "product." Accountants have things they sell to companies and their work involves "deliverables." It is first and foremost a business.
What are the "deliverables" that I am now most vividly recalling? Ways to move debt off of balance sheets by arranging lease purchase agreements. Setting up subsidiaries to hold assets that drag on earnings growth. The thing is that these sorts of strategies complied with FASB rules for GAAP. The Big Five became more and more aggressive at coming up with and pushing these strategies. Nothing was more desirable than going into a company you audited with something that could add a cent or two to EPS while following GAAP and then billing $20 million dollars for it. There were (and are, I am sure) national sales teams pushing the hell out of these things.
What is the significance? The underlying businesses of the companies that purchased these products did not change. The reported earnings appeared to be growing or growing faster with no substantive change in the quality of the audited business. Especially at a time where P/E multiples were at record historical levels, an added cent or two could result in billions (BILLIONS) of added market capitalization. Combine that with the enormous amount of stock options offered to management level folks, and you begin to see why these "accounting products" were so popular -- accounting firms got huge fees, execs got enormous increases in the value of the shares/unexercised options, and the cost to the audited business was a pittance in comparison.
Your average investor knew nothing about this. The average brokerage firm analyst probably knew less than s/he should have. Finance majors know very little about accounting and generally end up on Wall Street sneering at their boring(!) friends who majored in accounting who largely go to the financial accounting world. The result is that the audited companies (and their management) were in the middle knowing pretty much the whole story while trying to mislead investors and analysts (who have their own house to clean, btw).
The fact that all of this took place during one of the biggest bubbles in the history of american financial markets only exacerbated the problem.
For
Long enough, back to work. So many people to sue, so little time. (that's a joke, people)
Lots of petrified grits
If they overstated their profits, it stands to reason they overpaid their taxes. So shouldn't the IRS pay them a big fat check?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
> I love how the news outlets are saying, "error",
> "irregularity", "problem", as if this was all
> some sort of tragic accident, instead of laying
> out the obvious truth, "criminal fraud committed
> with full knowledge it was a crime".
I suspect that's for the courts to decide - not the press.
it's not the clothes I dislike, it's the lack of options.
I also dislike being treated as if I don't know how to dress myself. (I'm not married either)
Everyone knows that goodwill from acquisitions is bullshit. It simply shows how much of a premium WCOM paid for assets of companies it acquired. There is some pretend theorization floating around about goodwill and how it should be shown on a balance sheet, but the real core of the business is operations, overhead, and debt. Goodwill is a fantasy and has no appreciable effect on the operation of a business from a financial reporting standpoint, IMHO.
The simple equations is that operations need to throw off more cash than the debt service and the overhead. If that doesn't happen, you will be visiting the federal courthouse for a bankruptcy field trip. That is why the revenue and expense frauds were a problem. I don't think it is a big secret that WCOM used inflated stock to buy the inflated stock of other companies.
After all, that is what WCOM's business was -- selling WCOM stock at inflated prices. They only had to convince the world that the marginal companies they bought would achieve some magical "synergy" resulting in greater enterprise value simply by bringing them under the same corporate umbrella. In the 90's investors were gullible enough to believe in financial philosopher's stones.
Lots of petrified grits
You are clueless, completely clueless. The current economy that Mr. Bush has inherited was created during a Democratic administration, so if it's anyone's fault it is Clinton's.
With that said, I agree with the other stuff you said. I do not think government should be run like a business, large businesses are usually just as corrupt and inefficient as government. Big businesses grow and grow, just like government. Government needs to be kept on reigns, it needs to be constantly poked and prodded by the people to keep it from getting too large and out of control, like it currently is to the extreme.
So, don't vote Republican if you don't want, but for the love of all that is good, don't vote fucking Democratic either!
Keep in mind, it's the Democrats who have done more to harm "your right online". The DMCA had more support among Democrats, and so do the new CBDTA^H^H^H^H^Hrights removal type laws.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
No, a minimum-security prison is no picnic. I have a client in there right now. He says, the trick is kick someone's ass the first day, or become somebody's bitch. Then everything will be alright.
</officespace>
LOL - maybe they should just dress how their employer wants them to dress, earn their pay, and get on with their life after work. Who gives a crap how they have to dress at work? Not me.
Besides, a pair of casual work slacks is cheaper than a pair of 501's these days.
I believe the first time around they claimed $3.8B in accounting errors.
Now they've found another $3.3B.
$3.8B + $3.3B = $7.1B
Which is over 7 billion dollars. Voila! That wasn't so hard to figure out...
This one is easy: People have a tendancy to believe the world is 'fair'. (I think phsycology textbooks call it the 'just world' phenomenom.) So, the rich folks who commit crimes cant be all that bad - after all, they're rich, so they must do something right. The bike theif obviously has nothing more than bikes as his revenue stream, so he's obviously worthless to society and doesn't deserve any benifit of doubt or sympathy.
.. this is why I want to punch people who immediately place faith in those in power without doing their homework. Just because you're a leader doesn't neccessarily mean that you have constributed to society in a more positive way than some homeless dude. Sometimes, yes, sometimes no, but for those who don't spend any brain cycles on determining who deserves your angst, considering both the attribtion (personality) *and* disposition (environment in which behaviour in question was undertaken), their opinions are simply the stuffed ballots and "me too" posts of public opinion. And, as noted above, usually people will side (understantably, but not unforgivably) on the dude with more wealth.
Thats why people will forever feel less upset about White Collar crime (other than the obvious optics issues)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Hoppeism and the Bailout
Unfortunately, I know of no way as an American to profit from these bail-outs.
Also, the protectionist tariffs on behalf of the American steel and soft wood industries have the same basis as a bail out. Oh! Don't forget the Airline Industry, well see what happens the next time they whine for a bail out...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Would you care if you were a sys-admin and had to come to work in a tu-tu?
I love how the news outlets are saying,
"error", "irregularity", "problem", as if this
was all some sort of tragic accident,
As far as I can tell those are Worldcom's words. The newsies are reporting what they were told. Calling it criminal in a news story would be to run the risk of losing a libel suit as there have been no convictions yet.
While it is pretty obvious that there was criminal fraud, that has not yet been proven in a court of law. Let's not encourage the newsies to inject their opinions into the news any more than they already do.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Intel is NOT going to expense options. Big respected "old economy" companies like Coke and GM have said they would. What's Microsoft going to do. The lure of riches is a big drive for all the microsurfs. If they discontinue options the employees would be far less motivated, if they don't expense the options they are being (er) irregular.
"Wish I had that kind of cash to miscalculate on my income tax forms."
It isn't cash. It's earnings that were booked when they shouldn't have been. Good ol' matching principle.
Slashdot needs a review in accounting, commercial law, bankruptcy, etc....
... because I do....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One day I had to stop by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to pick up paintings from my girlfriend's locker. I zipped over after worked dressed in my suit and tie. I got lots of nasty comments about my clothing and about being a "corporate drone".
Funny thing was, every person there was wearing black cotton from head to toe, red Converse All-Stars, had either punk-red hair or at least a streak of red down the middle, and was smoking a clove cigarette. Every one.
Talk about drones. From that day on I never even bothered to listen to anyone's opinion of my clothing choice!
sPh
This is bad not just for the US, but for a whole lot of other economies in other countries.
Just as an example, VSNL, a semi-govt. owned organization in India and the biggest ISP, had deals worth billions with WorldCom.
Now, VSNL is unsure whether it would get the services or the money. The crux of the matter is that this would affect the shares here a whole lot more, since there are a lot of companies that use the services from VSNL, which in itself is paid for.
And unfortunately, who pays for this? The second and third tier customers in developing countries, who have to endure a whole lot more than their counterparts. Because, they too would be accountable, and I'm just waiting for the VSNL stock prices to plummet, along with others.
I think the executives of Multinationals should be held responsible and should be put to something of an international tribunal that analyses the consequences of their actions, worldwide.
Maybe the punishment should be to throw them in some third world country's prison with hardly a square meal a day and no water to drink, then they'd understand what the hell they were doing.
Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about a much larger class of thieves. You see, corporate criminals haven't stolen nearly as much from me as government con artists.
Funnier still, because I couldn't understand WCOM's books (nor the books of any other telco), I didn't buy their shares. I'm breaking even so far this year, after being up the past two years.
Yeah yeah, enough bragging. You see, the reason I was able to do this is because nobody put a gun to my head and forced me to by WCOM.
What went down at WCOM and ENE (Enron) sucked major ass. $10B frauds resulted into hundred-billion-dollar quantities of market-cap-ass being sucked. But Which is worse - Social Security or WorldCom? Social Security is a $13 trillion dollar black hole of unfunded liabilities. (That's accountant-speak for "debt that we've managed to hide from the balance sheet to the tune of about $45,000 for every man, woman, and child in the States".)
Unlike WCOM and ENE, if you don't pony up 6.5% of your salary every year into the scam (oh, and another 6.5% from your employer, for a total of 13% if you have the gall to work for yourself), people with guns will take it from you. Since when did Bernie Ebbers put a gun to your head and force you to buy his stock?
And unlike WCOM and ENE, who, when their frauds were exposed, were crushed - and their accomplices at Arthur Andersen in the process, SS is still in business.
Just like WCOM and ENE, Social Security is all about off-balance-sheet financing.
I'm not gonna pretend that a webzine like "capitalismmagazine" is unbiased (hell, they're a bunch of raving l00ny randroids, but some of their less-political articles, such as this one on Intel and this one on old-school investing are great) - but if you can dig through the rhetoric and politics, you might realize that if it's fraud and theft you wanna eliminate, we need to remove the two-by-four in Social Security's eye before we can see clearly enough to expose the grit in Worldcom's eye.
> And people don't seem very mad about this.
People are mad - and rightly so - about corporate fraud. And Congress is responding, because it's an election year.
I just wish people realized where the real fraud was being perpetrated, and force Congress to do something about that, too.
There was a Senator once who said something along the lines of, "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
"the attribtion (personality) *and* disposition (environment in which behaviour in question was undertaken)"
Isn't disposition closer to personality?
"Disposition is the natural humor of a person, the
predominating quality of his character, the
constitutional habit of his mind. Character is this
disposition influenced by motive, training, and will.
Temper is a quality of the fiber of character, and is
displayed chiefly when the emotions, especially the
passions, are aroused."
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
And attribution, "The act of attributing or ascribing, as a quality, character, or function, to a thing or person, an effect to a cause," is close to neither personality nor disposition.
Maybe people don't get upset about white collar crime because the one thing that suits can do is communicate effectively. Even if you don't know what the hell they were saying, you go away with the impression that they're probably right.
(And then you go and try to actually do what they suggested, and waste tons of time... but never mind that small point.)
the difference was that you probably wouldn't have been wearing a suit if your corporate master hadn't told you to. They may have conformed to each other, but they chose to do so.
The evil of Conforming by choice is less than that of Conforming for money. And choosing to be in an environment where you are forced to conform in appearance shows a lack of self-respect.
It goes into twenty to fifty $250 rounds of golf at Hilton Head Golf Club under the guise of a "management retreat."
It goes into the corporate learjet that whisks some of these officers away to the above two destinations.
It goes into the CEO's million dollar annual pension whether he retires a hero or gets the pink slip for delivering his company to chapter 11.
It trickles...straight up.
The tragedy isn't that this stuff happens. It is part of the human condition. Admit it. Most of us would do the same if we were in these fuckers shoes. The real tragedy is that we won't challenge this behavior until it is too late to make meaningful amends. Think Charles Dickens.
"This discovery is very disappointing to me -- as I'm sure it is to you. And it is quite possible that as our investigation continues we will find other questionable entries." - WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore in an email to employees
Here's the email
Would you prefer the media outlets to play judge or jury?
Of course they don't come out and call it fraud. That would be an editorial piece not a solid news piece. Judgement has not been passed by the COURTS, therefore the media does not predict the verdict. Of course we all suspect it is fraud at this point, since they've already been busted before. I'll bet you wouldn't want someone to proclaim you were guilty before you hit the court room, now would you? This is just something to think about for the site that calls themselves "News for Nerds..."
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
Uuuuh, Mr. Powell, it's a $70 billion debt, now. Maybe the problem is that we have an FCC chairman who's OPTIMISTIC about the future of Worldcom, and makes lame excuses saying "don't blame me for being optimistic". We blame you for being an idiot, because you're an optimistic corporate suck-up.
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
D'oh, right, got it the wrong way around. Thanks for the correction.
"Old man yells at systemd"
or else every corporation in America is guilt of it to almost the same degree. Why do you think they're not looking anymore. After Enron, everyone was looking for the next big thing, sending relatively legitimate new companies plummeting (Tyco.) Pick any fortune 500 company and I can guarantee you will find *at least* $1 billion of the same problem; its only when a company falls out of favor politically or socially that these things are exposed.
If getting business after business bailed out at taxpayer expense qualifies you as being "morally and ethically correct," I guess Bush is.
If being AWOL during your time in the National Guard (which coincided with the Vietnam War) qualifies you as being "morally and ethically correct," I guess Bush is.
If killing more people in Afghanistan than were killed in the World Trade Center qualifies you as being "morally and ethically correct," I guess Bush is.
If getting in the White House by winning a lawsuit after depriving thousands of their right to vote, qualifies you as being "morally and ethically correct," I guess Bush is.
Research the Bush family a little bit. Find out about Laura Bush's homicide via hit and run. Notice what agency G.W.H. Bush headed in the 1970s. Find out where Prescott Bush got his money from. Look at how much the Carlyle Group and Halliburton have received as a result of the W.'s war. See if you still think they're qualifies you as being "morally and ethically correct."
-- haaz.
I think these 7 billion should be "accounted" as the savings O'Neill is making for American carpenters and plumbers by not lending any money to Argentina.
Not that I, personally, want any more IMF cookies in the Argentine cookie jar, but come on! Now I'm very tempted to say the word hypocrisy. But I will refrain from it.
Bush, put your money where your mouth is
MADISON, Mississippi (CNN) -- In the shadow of WorldCom's headquarters Wednesday, President Bush assured voters -- some of who had lost their jobs, pensions and even life savings when the telecommunications filed for bankruptcy -- that the days of such corporate irresponsibility are over.
'nuff said
you wrote:
:to produce an effect upon: as a : to produce a material influence upon or alteration in b : to act upon (as a person or a person's mind or feelings) so as to effect a response : INFLUENCE
governments are effected by the stock market.
That is the finest bit of freudian spelling slip I've ever seen...all the better for its subtlety and the ease of overlooking it.
from http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
Main Entry: 2 effect
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1533
1 : to cause to come into being
Main Entry: 3 affect
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from affectus, past participle of afficere
Date: 15th century
First, I believe part of this is due to the fact that white collar criminals simply aren't seen as criminals. Criminality suggests violence, and since the only damage committed by these individuals to others is monetary, it doesn't register as a crime.
I'll give you an example--if you've ever been mugged (I have--he used an icepick for a weapon), one of the things you think afterward is "why couldn't he just take the money and leave me the wallet". It's not the money that you think of primarily; it's your life, the contents of your wallet, etc.
Second, I disagree with your premise that white collar criminals are equal to the "typical" criminal element. While Bernie Ebers and crew may have been responsible for billions of dollars of fraud, they also *created* thousands of jobs, and *earned* millions of people billions of dollars in the process.
Don't misunderstand--I'm not condoning their actions, and I do think jail time is appropriate. But don't tell me that someone who genuinely was a net producer to society, but cooked the books is morally equivilent or worse than someone who puts a knife to your throat for a $20.
That--and the fact that anyone putting their life savings (and more) into the stock market without paying attention to the fundamentals of the companies they were investing in deserve to suffer the consequences of a lack of due diligence--are why I'm not very mad about this...
At least in the U.S., opinion pieces are [usually] clearly marked as such.
They sure are. Typical markings denoting an opinion piece include "CNN", "Washington Post", and "MSNBC".
Please. Take a typical news story, any news story, and tell me you honestly can't see the bias and slant. Look at the use of loaded words and phrases. There's no such thing as journalism any more; it's all opinions.
The phrase "journalistic integrity" no longer has any meaning, and those pompous and pretentious novelists who pretend they are genuine journalists should take a typical high-school journalism class to be reminded what it is they're supposed to do.
As an investorwho got burned, (wiping my ass with some worldcom stock right now). The company looked solid, made profits, had a real product. Much more than I could say about the dozen or so dotcom stocks I bought during the bubble and made out on. Turns out they world com was managed by some clever crooks who made pets.com seem wel managed. But these guys fooled me, and oh yeah I want their balls.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Did you happen to see "Nachman" on PMSNBC last night? He got all weepy over the fate of a friend of his who was in a low-security prison. Nachman said that it was not a "country club," and that life was hard because the inmates did not have a choice of where to eat for breakfast.
I've got to wonder, with their employees flying cover like this -- just how many trillions of dollars of fraud Microsoft is responsible for. Wouldn't want to see Gates get pounded in the ass, would we?
Conforming for money IS conforming by choice.
I choose to make a sizeable chunk of money. To do that, I must be productive in the work environment common to my chosen profession. In order to be most productive, I have to avoid offending people by what I wear or distracting people from what I'm doing by wearing something outside the norm. Since I have no ethical objection to dressing in the way that is considered the norm, I choose to do it. If I did have a real objection to it, I would choose to give up some of my income and do something else.
When I go home, I choose to wear whatever is comfortable. But I'm kinda glad that I don't work all day with a bunch of people wearing sweatsuits. Just my preference.
Maybe it was a $3.3 billion accounting error in the opposite direction, cancelling out their earlier mistake?
we are anticipating a war against a monster we created, and which will likely cost nearly a hundred billion dollars. do we ask why? how much would it cost to truly fund an educational system which includes everybody? (1/100 of the militaries budget.) where does the money go? hundred dollar toilet seats are simply the extreme! hopefully we as a democracy will wake up and pay attention rather than watching the tube. perhaps we will one day learn to treat the world around us (both people and land) with respect rather than paying up at the end.
If you're not careful, mass media comment that the defendant in a criminal trial is guilty can be taken to be contempt of court. It certainly makes it much more difficult to find a jury that can give the defendant a fair trial, and is in general a rather shitty thing to do.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
To dying day, I'll never forget the sound of 30,000 people droning in unison: "We don't need no thought control".
Doh...please read the first "billion" as "million", or alternately all millions as billions. :-)
Point is, whatever culture or subculture you get involved with will try to impose its standards (dress code or otherwise) on you. You can always vote with your feet, but usually the benefits -- salary, learning art, etc -- outweigh the silly dress code.
"Focus on one's work" is a demonstrated activity that has nothing to do with "uniform" or "uniformity." Further, many businesses allow "business casual"--a good compromise that doesn't negatively effect the work of any professional.
Of course, it's always interesting to see slaves rationalize their slavery.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Yeah, don't get me wrong - I'd like to see them breaking rocks too. They earned it.
It's nobody's job but mine to protect me from my own stupidity.
> The stock market can have higher returns than safer investments, but it can also go DOWN. The risk is the price you pay for a possibility of a higher return. The stock market is NOT significantly different than going to a casino and gambling!
But here, I'm gonna call "Bullshit" on ya.
For every casino game other than Blackjack, the math proves the House has an advantage. You will lose. (And if you play Blackjack well enough to guarantee a win, they'll spot it and kick you out for counting cards :-)
> Would you gamble your life savings in a casino?? No, I don't think you would! Then why are you doing it in the stock market? A 401k is NOT a retirement plan -- it is plain and simple GAMBLING! Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.
I am not betting my life savings in the stock market. I am betting portions of my life savings in companies. I am doing so because - unlike the casino - I believe those companies will be able to provide me with a return on my investment by providing goods and services to people at a profit.
You're right in that it's not risk-free. If I'm wrong - if I believe the wrong people (like the CEOs of Worldcom and Enron, or the analysts who claimed that the dot-coms were gonna continue to go through the roof) - I stand to lose.
I think you'd agree with me when I say it's not easy. If I can't trust what the analysts say (and I can't!), then I have to do my own research. That's non-trivial.
But how's that different from any other buying decision? Most of us spend hours reading about technology every day - so that when we wanna play UT2003 or Doom 3, we know what hardware to buy that'll give us the most bang for our buck? Several hours of work (sometimes hundreds of hours, if you're a regular reader of hardware sites, or even Slashdot) for a $500-1000 purchase of hardware.
If you're going to invest in individual stocks (or even indirectly, through mutual funds), why not spend some time learning some accounting basics? Why not spend as much time taking care with your life's savings as you would with a new video card? (Or, depending on how much you've saved -- as much time as you'd spend researching a new car, or even a move to a new house?)
A balance sheet or earnings statement is like the specs on the side of a flashy retail box of hardware - it's a start, but it's not everything you need to know to make an informed purchase.
Just as any geek can learn enough to determine the front-runner in the never-ending race between Duron/Athlon/TBird/TBred/Palomino/Clawhammer/Sledg ehammer vs Celeron/Celeron2/P3/P4/P4-Northwood/Itanic - any geek can learn enough to determine whether a company's worth investing in.
The reason that the news outlets are saying this is because it is responsible journalism. Even the worldcom execs deserve a fair trial, and if they are condemned in the media for their alleged crimes, then that takes away what little hope of a fair trial they have. I would expect a journalist such as yourself, michael, to understand that.
shane d.
there are two responses to this.
I agree with you about not wanting to work with a bunch of slobs. I've been in that sort of environment and it's hard to take the Chief Scientist seriously when he's wearing shorts, a hawaiian shirt, and birkenstocks. However, you eventually can take him seriously, if you can get over your appearance prejudices.
Philosophically I'm appalled by the placement of being "environmentally correct", and thus making more money, over personal freedom. I know that I'm in the minority so I'll stop arguing. I bow down too after all.
"Before you point your finger you should know that I'm the man" - Tool
Here's a flash version of your rant.
... uh ... run Linux too.
Worldcom, Imclone, Global Crossing, Enron, Adelphia, Anderson -- "a few bad apples" or a systemic problem? I think Bush saying that the American people don't care about this "stock market stuff" just shows how out of touch he is. Either that, or he simply doesn't care and he's just filling time until the next topic of the day comes along.
Here's what we know:
- George W. Bush wanted to run the government like a business
- George W. Bush has never come within 50 feet of a successful business himself. Not Harkin, not the sweetheart deal with the Texas Rangers, not even that stupid airline catering company
- Neither has Dick Cheney
- Both Cheney and Bush are so close to the oil industry that they're willing to allow companies steal money from taxpayers and business in fradulent energy schemes.
Any talk of this being a Clinton-caused recession is just willfully ignoring that the Bush's tax cut caused nearly half of the budget shortfall.
What can you do?
- Demand that the Bush Administration release information on the secret energy task force. We want to know how Enron, Haliburton, Harkin, and Unocal were involved in this
- Demand that the Bush Adminstration support an independent investigation of the goverment's actions before and after September 11. If the attacks were due to the U.S.'s quest for oil, the American people deserve to know.
- Demand that the SEC open the files on Bush's dealings with Harkin
- Demand the Justice Department come down hard on Enron
- Demand to know why Bush is so interested in attacking Iraq
- Ask yourself if you're better off now or 4 years ago. Good, now vote Democrat in November.
Oh, and
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Actually, MS did this receantly. What they had been doing was underreporting earnings so as to be able to build up a reserve that they could then use later to prop up earnings when the market slowed down. It's not illegal, but still frowned on.
That's really odd, because if I underreport my earnings, I get in trouble for tax evasion.
I'm not trying to compare apples and oranges here; I'm really curious if MS reported the same numbers to SEC and IRS / Washington State Department of Revenue. If so then someone ought to get that money from them; Washington state needs every penny it can get right now.
Finding God in a Dog
You are totally wrong. Conforming due to external pressures is preferable to being a conformist down to the depths of your heart.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
great point anonymous coward, i agree. i'd much rather be mugged then be cheated by a greedy politician or business man. atleast they have balls!
If I could get paid the way those worldcom execs do, I'd be DELIGHTED to be a "slave".
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
ROTFLMAO,
Kid, for starters your drivel is an insult to people who lived in actual slavery. A Year under the lash in a cotten field or in a Siberian Gulag, and you might learn just how stupid your ideas are.
Secondly you might want to look up who first came up with the "Wage Slave" drivel you're spouting. A Fellow by the name of John C. Calhoun, a Slaveowner making the absurd claim that his Chattels were better off than free workers.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I believe the white collar criminal is fundamentally worse than a mugger or car jacker.
The white collar criminal costs us all money. In the lost taxes and lost jobs that eventually follow from corps. eating shit.
1) Since Enron and Worldcom are subsidized by our tax dollars in the first place (telecoms and the electric industry wouldn't exist today if we hadn't payed for the infrastructure)
2) We eat the taxes they don't pay. Now that we're having all these bitches being brought to trial we're all hurt and demoralized by having the executive world exposed for what it is. A bunch of crooks looking to take your money and run as fast as they can.
The illusion drops for a second and we see the situation for what it is. As soon as the news stops we'll all get our medication and the stock market will bloat up on the same bullshit as before though. And then there's be more tax based subsidies to support and maintain our corporate masters.
I dunno, I'd rather have my president fucking (or, "technically", not fucking) his intern, his daughter, his cat, whatever, than raising my taxes and sending me to war in Iraq. (Remember, some of us are of age for the draft here.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Wow. So how many jobs do you have to create in order to get your crime justified? What about, say, your local mob boss. He employs a couple dozen made guys...is he cool?
These people didn't just steal. They DESTROYED WEALTH. They took tens of billions of dollars of market capitalization, and turned it into tens of millions of dollars in their own pockets. They destroyed 99% of the wealth, and pocketed 1%. At least the mugger's going to turn around and spend the money he steals from me on crack, and then the crack dealer will go buy a new Benz. Yay. Money in economy good.
So, no, I'm not going to let the bastards who did this off the hook because they used a fountain pen instead of a gun.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Which is moronic. You should BE focused on your work, not trying to LOOK like you are. What you look like shouldn't matter at all, what you DO should.
Not like that's a revolutionary idea around here, though.
actually, the "pound me in the ass prisons" tend to be the state penitentaries. more violent crimes like murders, rapes, and assaults are governed by state and not federal law. a "minimum security country club" is what people also call club fed, which deals with white collar criminals.
I suppose it depends on your perspective. I believe that the most honorable way to live is however one chooses to live. If I choose a lifestyle and am happy with my choice then nobody has any right to tell me I'm wrong.
However, if someone else chooses a lifestyle FOR me, then my true self - the person that *I* choose to be - is being suppressed.
Say that we're talking about something good for you like eating a certain vegetable. Would you rather choose to eat the vegetable because you read the facts and know what nutrients it supplies, or be told to eat it because, well, people in your social stratum are supposed to?
Yes, Virginia, there are different degrees of slavery. Doesn't mean that "thought and appearance" (in other words, free speech) slavery is good.
Steve
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Everybody wants to point fingers and blame somebody, but lets look at it rationally starting with the first $3.8 Billion dollars.
Worldcom is accused of capitalizing too great a fraction of its customer acquisition expenses.
Does it make accounting sense to spread the cost of acquiring a customer out over several years?
-Absolutely. The customer is going to be generating revenue for many years, and revenue and the costs of that revenue ought to be recognized at the same time.
Is it industry standard practice to capitalize customer acquisition costs?
-Yes
Did Worldcom does this for over a decade, dating back to the early days of LDDS?
-Yes
Did the capitalization of expenses make sense at the time it was implemented? (When long distance customers were worth much more than they are today.)
-Yes
Did the accountants approve this?
-Yes
Why did Worldcom want to capitalize as many expenses as possible?
-Because it boosted the stock price. More expenses capitalized means fewer expenses in the current quarter. If your revenue remains constant and your expenses go down, your earnings go up. And if your earnings go up, your stock price goes up.
Who wanted a short term stock price boost?
-Worldcom's shareholders. So gunghoe were they about boosting Worldcom's stock price that they repeatedly approved massive grants of incentive options that encouraged Worldcom's executive to focus on one and only on goal -- boosting the short term stock price.
In my opinion Worldcom's shareholders got what they voted for. Charges of fraud only distract attention from the shareholders, with whom responsibility ultimately lies. I fear that as a consequence, Wall Street investors will fail to learn, what should be an important lesson from all this.
Cool! What do you do? Would I have to get a doctorate in CS to be as big of a slackass as you?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
You might also want to look up the phrase ``genetic fallacy.''
What we need to do with these people is not fine them 1% of their earnings or even throw them in a minimum-security prison for 5 years or so. They need something more effective; something that will allow them to see the pain that they have created.
I propose we strip them of all their wealth and make them live in inner-city Detroit, or better yet, Mexico City. Make them work in the assembly lines, under dangerous conditions, for slave-wages. Make them breath the noxious fumes that give workers athsma, lung cancer, emphysema. Hell, make them work in the sweatshops.
Make them try to find affordable houses with the minimum wage they make. Make them find apartments that aren't owned by blood-sucking landlords who overcharge rent and leave the buildings run-down simply because they have the power to - because people need a roof over their heads. Have Black or Latino police patrol their neighborhood.
"Cruel"? No more cruel than the conditions they subject their workers to. "Unusual"? Hardly, when millions of people already live like this.
Oops I did it again......
Why haven't the laws been applied to anyone at Enron?
You know, more to the point, I want to understand why any of these companies are allowed to continue to exist in any way, shape, or form. It seems to me that there was never a better application of the federal antitrust laws that are designed to protect investors and citizens in general from this kind of thing.
So why do any of these companies continue to have charters? I don't care if they've been driven to backruptcy; they'll just restructure and come back to do the same thing. Their charters should be revoked. These companies should never be allowed to do business in America again. They haven't demonstrated any ability to do so responsibly.
I'm sorry sandwich! --Brak
(free speech) slavery?
Sounds like "freedom is slavery".
Now where have I heard that?
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Why?
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
You appear to be blind.
In both situations it's a choice. The "artists" are conforming to a dress code to keep from being ridiculed by their peers and excluded from artistic society. The "corporate drone" is conforming to a dress code to keep from being ridiculed by his peers and thrown out of corporate society. Hmm...seems pretty similar to me.
The only difference is that the "corporate drone" is doing it so that he can continue to earn a living...which is generally considered a worthwhile thing. The "artist" is doing it so that he can impress his peers and be different...just like everybody else.
Both sides have a choice...to conform or be ousted from the place they've chosen to spend their time. The "corporate drone" just has the added bonus of getting paid for it as well.
Now that I think about it, you could spin any action to be conforming or non-conforming, because there are so many people willing to comment on your behavior in some way...
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Because an explanation of the the origin, or genesis, of an idea doesn't speak to the truth or applicability of that idea. For example, a criticism of the RIAA isn't made any less valid because the criticism is shown to have come from the mouth of a Clear Channel exectutive, even if the motive behind the statement can be shown to be evil or self-serving. Likewise, you can't show that wage labor isn't really a type of slavery simply because Senator Calhoun was the first to make that connection.
It's been a while since I took Intro to Logic, so correct me if I got it wrong, and I'll look it up.
I'm also not saying that all wage labor is really a type of slavery. Surely your main point is correct; the difference between real slavery and a job at, say, K-Mart or something should be obvious. Are there degrees of slavery? Yes. Is every form of exploitation a form of slavery? I don't think so.
it's not the clothes I dislike, it's the lack of options.
It's not like there aren't corporations that have either a very simple dress code, or just lack one alltogether. I happen to work at a company who's dress code seems to be:
1. No revealing clothes.
2. Shoes (specifically no bunny slippers).
During the summer I wear shorts and a T-shirt, and when it's cold, Jeans and a T-shirt. I have a few friends here that I think have gone 3 years wearing some form of vendor shirt everyday.
No suits, no ties... all in all, it's a relaxed work environment. I guess they realize that you have more productive engineers if they're kept happy. That would explain all the perks we get too.
Now the executives that deal with other companies and their representatives all the time do wear suits, but mostly because they want to appear more businesslike to others.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
Wow, someone has really been paying attention to Fight Club.
FWIW, I plan to vote Libertarian next election ;-)
IMO, the Libertarian party is the only party these days that cares about the freedom of the citizens.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
yeah, see, if I'm facing customers and other businesses, I have no problem with dressing appropriately. I still don't own a suit, but I'd never wear jeans and a t-shirt to a sales meeting. That's just dumb.
But if I'm sitting in a cube all day writing code and I only talk to other people that are doing the same thing, and the customers are in different buildings/cities/countries/whatever, then my attire has nothing to do with my ability to do the job, unless I'm one of those people that works better when they look better.
I'm in a relaxed office, too. Most people at my office routinely wear jeans and a polo/oxford type shirt, and sneakers. They only tell us to dress better when there are major clients in the office for meetings.
I basically agree with you, but I'd like to raise a question. Why is it that a choice to conform is somehow seen as restricting our freedom? Forcing someone to rebel is just as bad as forcing someone to conform.
TTFN
rebellion is just conforming to the minority. there is no such thing as unique behavior.
Clarification: Allowing one's appearance or thoughts to be effectively controlled by another entity, without a good rationale or good return on one's choice to conform (Business dress being a great example) is tantamount to being a slave. It's certainly nothing like the work-slavery of old and new, but it's slavery nonetheless.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Of course, it's always interesting to see slaves rationalize their slavery.
Slavery isn't slavery when the "slave" can leave any time he wants to.
Your job only becomes slavery when you have placed yourself in a position where you cannot afford to leave. In such a case, you are rarely a slave to your employer. Rather, you are a slave to your creditors, and must submit to your employer to meet their demands.
TTFN
That was Alexander Haig, when he was Secretary of Defense.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
I meant STATE.
Really. . .
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
This may not be the definitive answer to the question, "Why Andersen, but not KPMG/PWC/E&Y/C&L?", that you raise in point #3, but to me, it's a darn good one:
All auditing companies have an internal review panel for reviewing auditing practices when questions arise, right? But when a client wanted to stretch the rules, that could be a problem. Andersen decided to make a significant marketing element out of the fact that at Andersen, the local engagement partner (e.g. David Duncan, in the case of Enron) would have final say as to the auditing standards used. No need for things to get held up by some board at headquarters or worse, overruled.
Needless to say, this was a system whose architecture would inevitably corrupt the local engagement partners. David Duncan did some stupid and perhaps criminal things, but the real misdeed was done by whoever decided to adopt the policy of auditing standards being settled by the local engagement partner. Greedy dumb bastards.
I took the time to go back and look up where I read about this so you wouldn't have to take my word for it. You can find it discussed in this interesting Business Week Online article. Worth reading.
--LP
When you wish to go on another person's properity you either conform to thier rules of conduct, or you refrain from entering thier properity. If you don't like it, don't go there. Go somewhere that has standards of conduct that meet you taste instead of acting like a boor and hurling insults.
If one of my employees accused me of being a Slaver for setting standards of conduct on my properity , I'd glady "emancipate" his ass. I Want workers, not spoiled children who cry if they can't have thier way.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
It's too bad you ignored the clause "without a good rationale". Requiring business suits has no rationale that serves the purpose of an enterprise in ensuring that employees keep focus. If you can't understand this point, then you're just being argumentative.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Business suits say "we are serious" when a prospective client is visting to elvaluate a company. Just because you fail to understand the rationale dosen't mean there isn't one. It's a matter of setting a good impression.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
A couple of big companies went bust in Australia recently after carrying out some extemely dodgy practices - Andersen audited both of them and has been caught in the fallout. It looks like the best career choice over here at the moment is "secretary" to a company director - big salary (bigger than a CIO), big travel account, accomodation in the best hotels five days a week - and possibly a big lingere allowance as a valid work expense!
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Thankfully, like you suggested, I can choose to not work for a company that values puffery over performance, like yours.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
You didn't ``refute'' smagruder's argument because he never actually made any arguments supporting his position. He simply dogmatically stated that people who follow corporate dress codes are ``SLAVES.'' In turn, you simply called smagruder's statement ``drivel'' and ``stupid,'' and said he'd soon think better of it if he's actually was a slave. (A point that I thought obvious, but you didn't back it up with an argument.) Then you brought up Calhoun.
The majority of the people I have seen repeating Senator Calhoun's argument desire a variation of the system he was defending.Sigh. I hear this so often; upon hearing a statement that they disagree with, many people will type the speaker by ideology (e.g. ``liberal,'' ''neoconservative'') or agenda (`these people make such statements as part of a larger agenda') and then attack the ideology or agenda, rather than the statement. Attack smagruder's statements, not statements or ideas that he may or may not agree with.
And I didn't hear smagruder repeat Calhoun's argument. You were replying to smagruder's post, which said:
That's a statement, not an argument. Arguments have premises and conclusions. Calhoun said that wage labor was as bad or worse than the enslavement of Africans, right? When did smagruder say that? When did he use that to argue that states have the right to legalize slavery? And don't try to tell me that excessive government regulation is a form of slavery. It stinks, but it's not a ``year under the lash in a cotton field'' either.
Well, I'm through flogging this dead horse. And thank you for the history lesson about John C. Calhoun.