[battlecry]

GE?? I think any company with a CEO book is probably fair game. (Except Norm Augustine's "Augustine's Laws")

[DoctorMichael]

This disease seems to be in the huge corporate heavy-hitters..................

My Choice: GE and Jack Welch

[1Old Pro]

It depends on the definition of major. By guess is 2-10 is far too low.

[HAL9000]

2. SBC
3. Qwest
4. Charter Communications
5. Citigroup
6. Dell Computer
7. Comcast
8. Salomon SB
9. Bank of America
10. Oracle
11. Paypal

[RWCon]

Wal-Mart.

[Ken H]

Guesses--

Viacom-- We'll see BS from this one.
Time Warner AOL-- This is CNN's accounting.
Disney-- Goofy balance sheet.
GE-- Will bring bad things to light.

[mware]

Shares in General Motors, the biggest US motor manufacturer, were briefly suspended on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday amid rumours - strongly denied by the company - that it was subject to unspecified accounting problems.

It looks like McLauglin is turning into quite a prophet.

[ladtx]

Disney
GM
Verizon

[pepsi_junkie]

I heard or read a blurb about a poll of corporate ethics officers regarding corporate scandals. This was in response to the Tyco mess, prior to worldcom. They all said we could expect about 20 more scandals before it's done. Of course I wondered why if you are a bunch of crooks you bother to have an ethics officer, and if you have one why you would actually tell him anything but I guess they did.

My vote: GE. Despite efforts by his officially sanctioned biographers to portray him as a nice man who just wants whats best for his employees he was a ruthless by-the-numbers man, do anything for a buck. They didnt call him neutron Jack for nothing. While I was getting my masters degree I cringed whenever I was in a Wharton classroom listening to the profs (who were just about all exceptional, IMHO) use Jack Welch and GE as an example of the way business ought to be, share price is everything. I cringed because deep down I was and am conviced that he's a crook. And in the light of day we are now being exposed to, it'll turn up. GE has held a bunch of meetings with analysts to try to explain how they did the accounting for GE Capital and so far it hasnt helped. If its that confusing to experts you know they played with the rules.

By the way, GE is an icon of american industry. Far more so than Tyco or Worldcom or Enron. If it goes down to an accounting scandal it would send a real shockwave across the markets. Everything up to now will seem like ripples compared to a tidal wave I fear. Hope I'm wrong!

[mugsaway]

Loral...

[KC_Conspirator]

Amtrak

[Denver Ditdat]

Microsoft.

[freeperfromnj]

Citibank and Disney

[avg_freeper]

This was an article in the NYPOST : (bold mine)

So which five significant companies overstate profits the most, according to S&P's calculations?

The research firms says Raytheon may be reporting profits that are nearly 9,000 percent better than its "core" real numbers. And Perkin-Elmer is 7,274 percent overstated; The Gap, 1,047 percent; Apple Computer, 1,003 percent; and Yahoo! 956 percent.

(excerpt)

[unequallawsuntoasavagerace]

Truly amazing how George Bush was able to have such a pervasive negative influence on corporate culture in less than two years.

[alloysteel]

Only ten? Perhaps somebody should do a check on which stocks Terry McAuliffe has gotten out of recently, or is busy divesting himself.

[vharlow]

How about all the insurance companies that in recent years demutualized? Having a close association with one of them, I can tell you many of us suspect huge, I mean huge profits in the pockets of CEO's and other VP's and they will cut staff, cut expenses like crazy, and sell to the highest bidder from banking or foreign insurance organizations. Or that's what many of us suspect.

[Jim Noble]

Any company whose CEO was a prominent FOB (Friend of Bill)-AOL-Time Warner and Apple Computer certainly come to mind, but I'm sure freesearch will come up with more...

[cgbg]

Fleet Bank

FNMA

GNMA

When those last two blow that means there will be no bottom to the market, because it will mean a derivative holocaust has struck.

[gwynapnudd]

There appears to be a link between major sports stadium sponsorship and corporate skullduggery.