Monopoly is love; Monopoly is life. The philosophy of this game is to win at any cost, even if it means dismantling one’s ethics and sense of morality. Playing Monopoly all these years has taught me, however, in the game of life there will always be one winner and many losers. While playing this game, the soul of JD Rockefeller takes control of my mind and turns me into a ruthless competitor whose only mission is to maximize my assets by capitalizing on crucial and unfortunate mistakes made by others. It wasn't until the second semester of my sophomore year, when my Honors US History teacher introduced the side effects of greed, that I became socially conscious of the ramifications of dishonest business practices.…
Philip Musica who used the name F. Donald Coster bought the McKesson & Robbins in 1926 (Foster, p. 5). The owners of McKesson & Robbins sold the company which F. Donald Coster bought. Philip Musica had been involved in several fraud cases before he bought the pharmaceutical company Mckesson & Robbins. The Musica family had been involved in a scandal in which the family bribed custom officials.…
According to Joseph T Wells, Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, there are three primary reasons that a company commits financial fraud. "The three reasons a company would commit financial fraud is to conceal true business performances, preserve control and status, and to maintain personal wealth and income." A Houston based energy company, Enron Corporation, had a combination of all three. The practices under scrutiny were partnerships which investigators say were used to conceal debt and unprofitable investments (Cohan, 2011). This research paper will discuss what occupational fraud is, inform how Enron was involved, and discuss how technology could have been used to help prevent it.…
Merriam-Wester defines greed as a selfish desire to have more of something (especially money) (2016). After the deregulation of the pipeline industry the CEO’s of Enron were able to make major changes to the company. They became not only an energy supplier but an trading company as well. Trading allowed them to increase profit margins, and with greater success came the need to want more. Enron was known for its risky trading practices, however due to their reputation others followed suit.…
Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=59e976ea-caa3-4b98-a718-e29420909cda%40sessionmgr114&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=67096081&db=bth Giroux, G. (2008). What went wrong? Accounting fraud and lessons from the recent scandals. Social Research, 75(4), 1205-1238. Retrieved from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=256a1148-cdcf-4767-9e49-9601090ef5b7%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4108&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=36934864&db=buh Ravenscroft, S., & Williams, P. F. (2005).…
Kenneth Lay’s naïve presumption of Innocence Enron has been yet another example of how a group of unethical individuals with a taste of success can manipulate a position into unscrupulous grandeur for the benefit of a few with no oversight from above and the auditors who should have thrown up a red flag much sooner on the pay roll. It was the perfect storm for Kenneth Lay and his cohorts to squeeze every illicit cent they could from the Enron cash cow. Claiming his innocence to up until his dying day Kenneth Lay set the stage for an historic violation of integrity in the company he built into what should have been a huge asset for the United States and investors (Rosoff, Pontell & Tillman, 2014). In 2000, Kenneth Lay stepped down from his perch as the CEO and handed over the reins to Jeffery…
However, Norton (2002), believed that WorldCom alone should not be blamed for the reactions of the market and the economy. He stated that the blame is on the accounting legislation and regulations, and that WorldCom was just a result. As for the effect on the economy, he considered that to be part of the business cycle. The Imclone scandal in 2002 included insider-trading charges against the former CEO.…
Throughout the article the authors references many major scandals that has took place with in the same time period as Enron, for example Global crossing, WorldCom, Tyco, west, Major Banks, and Prosperous hedge funds. Enron has always been known for falsifying financial information on their balance sheet, Income statement, Statement of retains earning but this article displays the reasoning behind that. Enron has been involved in many issues causing them to lose valuable…
The story of Enron is probably the most notable, epic failure in the history of corporate bankruptcies. It took the company ten years to grow from $10 billion in assets to over $65 billion in assets, yet took a mere twenty-four days for them to go bankrupt. While many books, articles, and documentaries blame the Enron’s demise on its leaders, the company’s culture, accounting practices, or deregulations from the government, the employees are also to blame. Consequently, the employees’ overidentification with Enron corporation led employees to turn a blind eye to the company’s unethical practices and greed until it was ultimately too late to save.…
The purpose of this paper is to show that throughout the 107 year history of General Motors, that the complex organizational structure suffered from fragmented divisions of mismanagement, the company culture remained secretive, unethical decisions were continually made, along with cover-ups concerning product safety. Research indicates that General Motors put profit before human lives and did not live up to its own ethics. Documented court cases against General Motor are referred to in this paper to show the unethical culture that existed within the corporation. In 2009, General Motors faced bankruptcy requiring a government bail out.…
In the early 2000s, the business world was rocked by a series of scandals in the business sector and many of which involved suspicious accounting activities. One of the largest of these failures was a company known as Enron. Due to their involvement with Enron, the Enron debacle is sometimes referred to as the Enron/ Arthur Andersen scandal. The inclusion of Arthur Andersen in the Enron scandal was due in part to the fact that Andersen handled the accounting for Enron for approximately sixteen years. As a result, the government accused Andersen of overlooking large amounts of money which were not being accounted for in Enron’s books (HG, 2016).…
“I am ashamed of what I did. I wish I could undo what I did at Enron but I can 't. I understand that I deserve punishment.” These were the words professed by Andrew Fastow, Enron Corp.’s (Enron) former Chief Financial Officer, in the moments prior to being sentenced to six years in prison for his transgressions. Irrefutably, Enron is perceived by many to be one of the most notorious frauds of the early 2000s. WorldCom, whose insolvency has been deemed to be one of the largest of all time, is another entity that partook in a duplicity that arose from an endeavor to mask a company’s deficit.…
The Free Markets and its Effect “A free market is a system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.” In the video,” From the Expert” an illustration is presented of an apple tree and the height of the apples needed for harvesting. The video goes to show how picking the lower hanging apples yield a higher profit than the apples that are midway up the tree. Also the apples on the very top of the tree, although some of the best apples, due to the cost of the labor to harvest them they do not yield a profit and should not be picked.…
Introduction - Historic Enron Financial Scandal The merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth produced Enron in 1985 which started off slowly specializing in the natural gas and then grew to start increasing its product range. Kenneth Lay founded Enron and became Enron’s Chairman and CEO. However, Enron management aggressively decided the need to grow faster, increase investor’s confidence, attract more investments and increase their credit rating. In order to achieve their vision, the company pushed for the change to the constitution and the legislature removed the law which relaxed regulations in the industry.…
Ethics play a central role in accounting and the business world in general by addressing questions about the right or wrong of the used methods (Onyebuchi, 2011). Pakaluk (XXXX) states that one of the main reasons for the financial crisis in the year 2008 was caused by unethical accounting. (Pakaluk & Cheffers, 2011, p. 28). AIG, a big insurance company, sold so called credit default swaps (CDS) which serve as an insurance for the buyer XXXXX. If the debtor is not able to pay the debt, the seller of the CDS covers the outstanding debt.…