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"What I point to is more stupidity and arrogance than fraud. This is not to deny that fraud exists, but fraud would not be very effective without gullible individuals running large and valuable institutions."

Oh, you can be sure Messrs, Ebbers, Lay, Fastow, and the others very well KNEW what they were doing. Even worse, certain accountants and lawyers- who are front line guardians who are SUPPOSED TO protect the integrity of our institutions- instead willfully participated in, facilitated, and benefited from the scams.

These knucklheads and their scams wrecked several key corporations- costing our economy over 7 TRILLION dollars. They also wrecked the livelihoods and retirements of millions of Americans and embarassed our nation to the world. And for what? Luxury homes, cars, vacations, prostitutes, and gifts for themselves.

"Was Ebbers a crook, or a jumped-up salesman who really believed he was a great businessman? It's really very hard to say."

He was grossly irresponsible and yes, the record shows he LIED to employees, shareholders, vendors, creditors, and to the American people and their government.

I and certain others blew the whistle on WorldCom before it "bought" MCI- a company several TIMES WorldCom's size. HELLLLOOOO! I'm sorry Mr. Accountant, a sardine CANNOT eat a cruise ship.

"I'm afraid that if we starting sending people to jail for being stupid, we're going to have to put a wall around the country and ask the smart people to leave."

No need to fear. Out of a population now exceeding 290 MILLION people, we are looking at fewer than 1,000,000 individuals who also happen to be crooked businessmen accountants, lawyers, officials, and judges. They can be dispensed with VERY easily PROVIDED President Bush, AG Ashcroft, and other serious minded Federal authorities take ACTION soon.

I and certain others blew the whistle on WorldCom before it "bought" MCI- a company several TIMES WorldCom's size. HELLLLOOOO! I'm sorry Mr. Accountant, a sardine CANNOT eat a cruise ship.

AOL ate Time Warner. And they did it just in time too, before the fraudulently-inflated value of AOL stock nosedived and took Time Warner down with it. I will always be convinced that was Steve Case's master plan all along: he knew AOL's business plan was illegitimate and could not sustain itself indefinitely, just like every other dotcom out there, so he waited until the stock value became big enough that he could buy out a well-established company with actual assets and profits, and then he'd be on top even if AOL fell apart. And it worked, too. AOL would probably be out of business today if they'd never merged. Instead, Steve Case is set for life. Yeah, he just had to give up his chairmanship, and Time Warner is worth less than half of what it was before the merger, but Steve Case is still worth more than all of us combined, and since he's still got all his stock, he'll be even richer one Time Warner finally gets the cojones to jettison AOL and get back to making money again instead of pouring cash down a giant sewer in Vienna, Virginia.