Is Corporate Accounting Misconduct New?
Certainly not. It is just that on the last round such a large number of every day people got hurt that politicians and journalists are now interested for the votes and newspaper sales. It is my belief from observations made while in the consulting business that many start up companies are there for the sole purpose of fleecing investors. Their main product is smoke and mirrors. If they go under before going public, no one can legally show that they were amongst the 90% failures because of anything other than bad luck. The executives get to keep the income from their inflated salaries. If they go public, well you know the story here. The following were mostly observed by me in the five years prior to about 1992. All of these companies are now out of business. Some examples of smoke and mirrors are loaning out products and extrapolating sales volume from that base. The loan is disguised as a purchase with right of return one year later and payment is not expected until then. One company
