Word: legerdemain
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Here is China's headache regarding Hong Kong: how to control the territory without appearing heavy-handed. This political legerdemain lies at the heart of "one country, two systems," but was hardly invented for Hong Kong. It has been in use for decades inside China, where just about everybody has been told they are entirely free, though everyone understands that "free" means "free to concur." In China, successful bureaucrats master the skill of accepting control from above while pretending to be independent...
Harvard’s early 1990s partnership with Harken Energy Company—by which Harvard, despite being Harken’s largest shareholder, helped the oil company remove debts and liabilities from its books—is deeply disturbing. For any company, such financial legerdemain is ethically wrong, even if it does not violate the letter of the law. By hiding Harken’s debts, Harvard was able to sell its Harken stock at an inflated price—a deceptive practice that smacks of the same corporate decadence that has plagued the U.S. for at least...
...stiffens penalties for fraud and increases funding for the SEC, whose budget growth he had limited in February. Whatever legislation Bush signs will not address the widespread use and misuse of stock options, which have been cited as one of the main culprits of the market bubble and accounting legerdemain: the higher a company's reported profits, the higher go stock prices, and the more quick money option-holding executives get. Aides say that when they recently discussed with Bush the proposal to require that stock options be treated as a business expense, like other forms of compensation, he held...
These rookies, like Pitt, face a rough season. "There could be other Enron-like situations out there," says Arthur Levitt, the activist former SEC chairman. "Financial legerdemain from seduced audit committees, compromised accountants and inadequate standards could certainly crop up again at other U.S. companies." At the moment, the public's best protection against that sort of surprise is other brave whistle-blowers like Sherron Watkins...
...other accounting executives to empty seats on the sec: Paul Atkins, a partner with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and Cynthia Glassman of Ernst & Young. These rookies, like Pitt, face a rough season. "There could be other Enron-like situations out there," says Arthur Levitt, the activist former sec chairman. "Financial legerdemain from seduced audit committees, compromised accountants and inadequate standards could certainly crop up again at other U.S. companies." At the moment, the public's best protection against that sort of surprise is other brave whistle-blowers like Sherron Watkins...