Corporate honesty iffy? You bet

I know exactly what you mean about corporate honesty and accounting numbers. Here in Birmingham, we have Richard Scrushy of Healthsouth fame. I mean HOW do you overstate earnings by 1.2 BILLION $$$ and keep a straight face? What was he thinking? Thankfully, he was convicted of bribery a couple of weeks ago, along with the former governor, and will probably go to the country club, uhhmm..I mean, prison for a while.

The company I work for bought another operation back in Jan., and the books are so screwed up you would not believe it. Thankfully it’s not publicly traded. I think most corporations don’t intentionally cook the books to inflate earnings or to avoid taxes (most of it is incompetence), but the maybe 5% that do cast doubt on all of corporate America. I’m pro-business/capitalist/Republican/conservative to the core, but cases like Enron and Tyco make my blood boil, when I think about the innocent investors who lost so much. To a large extent, greed is good, because it drives people to do better and to innovate, and moves our entire society forward. But there’s a big difference between healthy, honest competition and fraud.