When I watched debacles at Enron, Tyco, and now with Tom Petters and Bernie Madoff, I wonder how a team of conscientious accountants could have simply watched as the key players made off with billions from (more or less) innocent investors.
Well, courtesy of the Mises Institute, I learn that there were at least two people who did in fact speak up to the SEC....allegations that the SEC failed to follow up on, apparently.
Closer to home, I talked with a friend whose company was shut down by the bank after millions in venture capital disappeared in a matter of weeks. Accounting staff at the bank shut them down as a result.
So it's probably not true to say that private accountants are completely neglectful in warning of business irregularities. The SEC, on the other hand, appears to be more worried about Martha Stewart than real securities fraudsters.
Podcast #1047: The Roman Caesars’ Guide to Ruling
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The Roman caesars were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC
with Julius Caesar’s heir Augustus, from whom subsequent caesars took their
nam...
10 hours ago
2 comments:
Those high profile cases are much more fun to manage.
True, but I've got difficulty figuring out why one's long term career would be better served by going after Martha than by getting high profile convictions on actual securities fraud, as they could have gotten.
Of course, Martha's persecutor is now famous as the "guy who got Blago," so I guess it worked.
Sigh.
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