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Corporate
America’s Most Wanted
When
it comes to learning from its mistakes, corporate America
has fallen off the rehab wagon more times than Robert Downey
Jr. A quick glance at last week’s papers reveals that it’s
monkey business as usual on Wall Street.
Exhibit A is HealthSouth. Last week, another high-ranking
executive at the nation’s largest provider of rehabilitative
health-care services pleaded guilty to routinely cooking the
company’s books. And this wasn’t just happening back in the
bad old days when everyone was doing it—no, these guys were
fraudulently inflating earnings well into 2002, even as Enron,
WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco were front-page news. How’s that
for clueless?
Next up on the “They Just Don’t Get It Tour” are the good
folks at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), offering proof of
just how little has changed when it comes to corporations
rewarding failed execs with massive severance packages. After
pushing CEO Dick Brown out the cockpit door for overseeing
a 50-percent drop in share price since September—as well as
steering the firm into an SEC investigation—EDS then handed
him a golden parachute worth $37 million. So Brown managed
to Dick shareholders even past the bitter end.
Then there was the New York Stock Exchange’s jaw-dropping
decision—mercifully stymied by Eliot Spitzer—to appoint scandal-tainted
Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill to its board to, I kid you
not, represent the public. It’s a move that makes about as
much sense as naming Khalid Abdul Muhammad to the 9/11 Commission.
Clearly, corporate America hasn’t gotten the message. Unless,
of course, it has—the message that the spotlight is off, that
the media’s focus has moved on to Iraq or the new batch of
hotties on The Bachelor, so there is no need to reform
its nefarious ways. We need to change that. And the quickest,
most efficient way to do it would be to round up the worst
and the slimiest and bring them to justice. So be on the lookout
for Corporate America’s Most Wanted:
Jack Grubman, former head telecom shill at Salomon Smith Barney,
aka “the Bruce Springsteen of telecom.” Wanted for: securities
fraud; producing misleading stock analyses; betraying the
trust of investors nationwide; and upgrading his rating of
AT&T stock in an effort to help get his kids into the
Harvard of Manhattan nursery schools. All while pulling in
a cool $20 million a year. Warning: Grubman is armed with
stacks of overblown research reports and should be considered
extremely dangerous to your financial well-being.
Ken Lay, former chairman and CEO of Enron, aka “Kenny Boy,”
“the poster child for cash-and-carry government,” and “one
of the top 25 wealth creators of the last quarter-century.”
Wanted for: cooking the books; cashing in $100 million in
Enron stock in the year before the company collapsed, costing
5,000 employees their jobs; urging employees to invest their
hard-earned money in Enron stock even after he’d been warned
that the company was about to “implode in a wave of accounting
scandals”; and overseeing a company that avoided paying any
taxes in four of its last five years by creating 881 offshore
subsidiaries. Hideouts: Jus’ Stuff, the secondhand store his
wife opened to unload some of her pricey baubles. Known associates:
fellow Enron Gang members Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow, “good
friend” George W. Bush, and the dozens of politicians who
gladly accepted campaign contributions from Lay and Enron.
Warning: considered dangerous and psychopathically indifferent
to the suffering of others. Didn’t hesitate to stab thousands
of Enron workers and investors in the back or “turn out the
lights” on millions of powerless Californians. Approach with
extreme caution.
Sandy Weill, Chairman and CEO of Citigroup, aka “The King
of the Deal,” “Wall Street’s highest-paid executive.” Wanted
for: raking in close to $1 billion in stock-option gains;
overseeing a company that helped Enron defraud shareholders
to the tune of $4.8 billion; rigging the IPO market; predatory
lending; and falsely boosting the value of a host of tech
stocks in an effort to land more business for its investment-banking
division. Warning: considered loaded and lethal. According
to a secret e-mail uncovered by Eliot Spitzer, Weill won a
Citigroup power struggle by getting Jack Grubman to help him
“nuke” a former boardroom nemesis. If provoked, might be willing
to use such weapons again.
Richard Cheney, aka “Dick” and “Mr. Vice President.” Former
CEO of Halliburton, currently vice president of the United
States. Wanted for: serial use of offshore tax shelters; overstating
Halliburton revenue by $100 million; doing $73 million worth
of post-Gulf War business with Saddam Hussein, then denying
it; overseeing Halliburton’s consistent overbilling of the
Pentagon (a habit that led to $2 million in fines); helping
to systematically gut decades’ worth of environmental protections;
and fighting tooth and nail to keep secret the records of
his very-energy-industry-friendly energy task force. Identifying
marks include a distinctive sideways smirk and an implantable
cardioverter defibrillator (a device the size of an electronic
garage-door opener) embedded in his chest. Hideouts: his secure,
undisclosed location and GOP fundraisers. Known associates:
Ken Lay, anyone with a campaign donation for the GOP, and
little buddy George W. Bush. Warning: considered armed to
the teeth and extremely dangerous, especially now that the
Bush administration has expressed a willingness to use “overwhelming
force including nuclear weapons” if rubbed the wrong way.
Do not try to apprehend the suspect on your own. Cheney has
blithely shrugged off four heart attacks in the past—what
makes you think you can stop him?
Henry Blodget, disgraced Internet shill, aka one of New
York magazine’s people “who are inventing the world we’ll
be living in the next millennium.” Wanted for: shameless Internet
boosterism; regularly breaching his investment bank’s Chinese
wall; repeatedly lying through his teeth; and publicly placing
Internet turkey Infospace on his “favored 15” list while privately
referring to the company as a “piece of junk.” All while pocketing
$12 million a year. Warning: Not content with earning millions
while scrambling the nest eggs of trusting investors with
his misleading stock analyses, Blodget now wants to further
cash in on his nefarious deeds by penning a tell-all account
of his years pushing Internet crap at Merrill Lynch. Avoid
this self-serving—and highly toxic—claptrap at all costs.
—Arianna
Huffington
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