The Worst Accounting Scandals At U.S. Companies

[JSOP]

I wasn't sure exactly which company "Margin Call" was about. Seemed like a mix of companies since it was fictionalized. I thought the plot surrounded around the screw up over Value-at-Risk calculations so it was about Lehman.

I don't usually watch Hollywood versions of the truth since it is likely to be whitewashed by their POV.

By 'American Dream' I meant the rush for everyone to get home ownership which was at the heart of the crisis.

Nah The Margin Call was depicting Goldman Sachs. Lehman Brothers went under cuz it couldn't unload the shit off the balance sheet fast enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_Call

Goldman Sachs screwed its contemporaries in the industry so bad that it had to withdraw itself from the investment banking business because that's the segment that you need your contemporaries' help in order to succeed but after what they did with their knowingly unloading worthless shit onto others with no swaps, nobody in the industry would work with them ever afterward.

 

[nitrene]

Yeah that makes sense about them screwing over their contemporaries. That was the main point of the last 30-40 minutes of the film. The guy who played the CEO was very good.

So that means Goldman had underlings that screwed up the VaR model. Thats pretty surprising.

 

[mlawson71]

To this day I am baffled at what happened with Enron. How did they let go this far.

 

[Sig]

To this day I am baffled at what happened with Enron. How did they let go this far.

Highly recommend reading (not watching!) Smartest Guys in the Room for a very accurate and detailed yet readable account of Enron. There were actually two completely independent sets of fraud going on there, in addition to the accounting fraud they were also manipulating electricity markets. Fascinating reading for people like us.

 

[newwurldmn]

Highly recommend reading (not watching!) Smartest Guys in the Room for a very accurate and detailed yet readable account of Enron. There were actually two completely independent sets of fraud going on there, in addition to the accounting fraud they were also manipulating electricity markets. Fascinating reading for people like us.

Was the electricity manipulation illegal or was it one of those "wallstreet ethical but normal people unethical" activities

 

[Sig]

Was the electricity manipulation illegal or was it one of those "wallstreet ethical but normal people unethical" activities

It was pure market manipulation, very illegal but still pretty easy to do to this day in the actual physical electricity markets by their nature. If you look at FERC civil penalties you see guys still trying to do it all the time today although not getting away with it. Enron would shut down plants in CA calling it maintenance just to cause shortages that would drive the price up for the rest of their plants; they single handedly were responsible for most of the rolling blackouts in CA at the time. Also would wheel power around in non-economic ways to artificially create a shortfall, for example, by selling CA power in the PNW which had an excess. All very well explained in the book even if you don't know a ton about power markets, the author is pretty good at simplifying without oversimplifying.

 

[murray t turtle]

The most shocking thing to me is still how the Credit Ratings Agency skirted the law by claiming their bond ratings were only "opinions."

Worthless CDOs rated as AAA which were on the verge of defaults. Simply amazing how stupid the Bush/Obama administrations were. I remember the last AG under Obama even claimed in an interview after he left that "The firms were too big to sue."

%%
Part of a pattern.
He did go after one of the agencies that downgraded US debt/BUT plenty,plenty of lawsuits were filed against big banks/big fines....................................................................