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This is only the tip of the iceberg. When one considers what happened to telecom companies last year, all of them pounding the table saying the future is brighter than ever one quarter and the next quarter multi-billion losses and a total trainwreck. You can bet there has been a whole lot of book cooking going on in telecom.

As far as accountants go, they basically rely on information provided by their clients and perform audits with client objectives in mind. If the client want's inflated numbers, the accountants will take a more aggressive approach.

If regulations allow you to lease my asset for $1,000,000,000 for me to lease your asset for $1,000,000,000 and for both of us to record revenue from the deal of $1,000,000,000 on-balance while locating the expense off-balance, is it really fair to blame the accountants? What were the financial analysts and financial journalists doing?

I think Accounting firms (after billions of dollars in law suit judgements) are going to be, once again, doing what they were supposed to be doing as in auditing the books, and reporting, or pushing the red button.

Enron has changed everything, unless our clinton/Country mentality has gone over the cliff.

I would sure hate to lose my wallet in a mall today vs 50 years ago. The odds would be extremely slim.

As far as accountants go, they basically rely on information provided by their clients and perform audits with client objectives in mind. If the client want's inflated numbers, the accountants will take a more aggressive approach.

There is a BIG difference between a review and an audit. Enron paid Andersen $27 million a year for auditing their books. In addition they paid another $25 million for consultants. Andersen is in this up to their necks. They not only audited, they gave financial advice. This isn't some little $30,000 audit.