Word: enronize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Friday left the market at a five-year low, Americans are more worried about their financial future than at any other time since the turbulent '70s. They flocked to stocks in the roaring 1990s, only to see $7.7 trillion of paper wealth incinerated. If the scandal and collapse at Enron had been isolated, the nation's deflated sense of opportunity might have been repaired by now. Instead, the lid has been lifted on bogus revenue-generating schemes throughout the energy and telecom industries; earnings deception on an even broader scale; and the frightening failure of accountants, stock analysts, board directors...
Aside from the obvious problems with 401(k)s--demonstrated in the collapse of plans at Enron, Global Crossing and other once high-flying companies--there are seldom-discussed issues, including poor performance and what is known as leakage. The average 401(k) plan's equity holdings are concentrated in large-cap companies, so their returns track the S&P 500, which has dropped 44% from its peak. Over the long run, experts say, 401(k) returns lag behind professionally managed pension funds by 1 to 2 percentage points a year. And as if meager returns were not bad enough...
...Administration's effort to seem concerned was not helped by Army Secretary Thomas White's appearance before a Senate committee last week. White, a former top executive at Enron, denied that he had a hand in manipulating energy prices in California while vice chairman of Enron Energy Services. Under verbal torture by Senate Democrats, he also had to explain his 77 phone calls from Washington to top Enron associates as that company was disintegrating--and as he was netting $12 million in Enron stock sales and as the war in Afghanistan was at full throttle...
...stock in a company that puts its name on a sports stadium, it might be time to think about selling. Fans of the Houston Astros flocked to Enron Field, and Tennessee Titans ticket holders went to Adelphia Coliseum for their home games--until earlier this year, when both troubled companies were unable to pay the millions of dollars required to keep their logos in lights. Dean Bonham, a sports-marketing expert in Denver who helps companies buy naming rights, says there are more than 60 multiyear naming deals in the U.S., worth a total of about $3.5 billion. Five...
...handshake or the strength of a family name. When the oil boom went bust, as it did for Bush in the mid-1980s, small-business men didn't cash out their stock options and run; they took pay cuts and tried to help their employees. To Bush, Enron and WorldCom were aberrations, the fault of a few bad actors in an otherwise sound system. "We were, like, What in the world?" says Commerce Secretary Donald Evans of his conversations with Bush. "We were just kind of bewildered. It is unbelievable...