Book DescriptionHow Corporate Crooks Fleeced American Shareholders (and How Congress Failed to Stop Them) Just months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, American investors came under attack. Two of the nation?s biggest corporations, Enron and WorldCom, admitted that they had overstated their earnings by billions of dollars. As those two titans collapsed into bankruptcy, shareholders were stuck with almost $200 billion in losses. Accounting scams were also exposed at Adelphia and HealthSouth. Tyco?s board of directors eventually realized that its earnings needed to be restated, even as its top two executives were charged with larceny. The people and organizations responsible for protecting investors?Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the big Wall Street banks that lent billions to these fraudulent enterprises?fell down on their jobs. Worse, Congress actually wrote laws that provided incentives for executives to...
