• Catching up on Judd Bagley: Part 1

    I’ve been a bit remiss in my blogging about the train wreck that is called Overstock. com. The CEO, Patrick Byrne (known to many as “Wacky Patty”) and his Director of Communications, Judd Bagley regularly engage in questionable behavior in […]

  • Book publishing: The Book is Done!

    The final manuscript was sent today, so Essentials of Corporate Fraud is officially done. I’ll have a small bit of work to do after the copy editors get their hands on it, but I don’t expect there to be much […]

  • Okay, I did it. I watched Kid Nation.

    A month ago, I did a post on the new reality television show called Kid Nation. I was basically horrified as I learned that the children on this show were exploited by their parents, who signed lengthy contracts allowing their […]

  • Food Stamp Follies: Oregon Governor’s Publicity Stunt, and the Reporting

    Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski got lots of attention earlier this week as he tried to show us how allegedly inadequate the Food Stamp program is. However, the USDA’s “food stamp budget” provides per-person per-week benefits to recipients with no other […]

  • Plea Agreement with Bill Lerach

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office has announced a plea agreement with Bill Lerach, former partner at Milberg Weiss. He will plead guilty one one count of conspiracy, forfeit $7.75 million, and pay a $250,000 fine. He will receive a prison sentence […]

  • Finding fraud by looking at ratios

    While doing some research, I came across an old article written by Joe Wells on analyzing ratios to find fraud. The article Irrational Ratios was published in the Journal of Accountancy, and used the ZZZZ Best case to illustrate the […]

  • Whistleblowers and Sarbanes-Oxley

    One of the major selling points of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was the protection for whistleblowers. The legislation required public companies to put into place “anonymous reporting mechanisms” (like hotlines) so that employees could report suspected fraud without fear […]

  • The Next Enron? Countrywide Workers Sue Over Retirement Plan

    The mortgage lender’s employees say the value of retirement accounts plummeted by millions as the company’s stock fell. Some Countrywide Financial Corp. employees sued the mortgage lender Wednesday, claiming they suffered heavy losses in their 401k retirement accounts after the […]

  • M.B.A.s Are Losing Their Importance on Wall Street

    Many young people on the fast track to fat paydays in the financial industry are choosing to forgo M.B.A. programs. As more Americans have become abundantly wealthy, young people are recalculating old assumptions about success. The flood of money into […]

  • A Follow-Up on the Story in the WSJ About the Hutterites

    A couple of weeks ago, I did a post on a story in the Wall Street Journal about the Hutterite community and the use of cell phones and text messaging. I wrote the post not because it has anything to […]