How to Avoid Investing in Crooked Businesses
Reading Kurt Eichenwald's fascinating book on Enron Corp., "A Conspiracy of Fools," is enough to make an investor throw up his hands (or his lunch), sell all his stocks and buy a bundle of nice short-term U.S. Treasury bonds. Eichenwald shows, in vivid detail, how Enron executives used every trick, legal and illegal, to display […]
Reading Kurt Eichenwald’s fascinating book on Enron Corp., “A Conspiracy of Fools,” is enough to make an investor throw up his hands (or his lunch), sell all his stocks and buy a bundle of nice short-term U.S. Treasury bonds.
Eichenwald shows, in vivid detail, how Enron executives used every trick, legal and illegal, to display healthy, rising profits each quarter. The business itself meant little to these manipulators. A lust for sexy earnings reports drove the company. Even dispassionate professionals were fooled. At the conservative and independent Value Line Investment Survey, an analyst wrote in late 2001, after Enron shares had already fallen sharply: “We think fears are overdone
Ambassador Glassman has had a long career in media. He was host of three weekly public-affairs programs, editor-in-chief and co-owner of Roll Call, the congressional newspaper, and publisher of the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic. For 11 years, he was both an investment and op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.
The views represent those of the author and not necessarily those of Capitalism Magazine.
RELATED ARTICLES
Privatization of Property: Importance of Fighting on Basis of Principles (Part 2 of 10)
The privatization of property is the most fundamental aspect of a procapitalist political program
Toward the Establishment of Laissez-Faire Capitalism (Part 1 of 10)
If a laissez-faire capitalist society is to be achieved, a political movement pursuing a long-range program will be necessary.
What a Plate of Huevos Rancheros Taught Me About Open Immigration
Immigration is our lifeblood and has made America great. Let’s keep America great. Let’s make America great again.
Memorial Day: What We Owe Our Soldiers
To send soldiers into war without a clear self-defense purpose, and without providing them every possible protection, is a betrayal of their valor and a violation of their rights.