![]() ![]() And the reason it's getting dramatically worse is we've had a massive run-up since the early 1980s in stock prices. EICHENWALD: It's getting dramatically worse. EICHENWALD: If we look back on those, those scandals are kind of cute. You know, Standard Oil monopoly, that kind of thing. HANSEN: Do you think it's getting worse or has this always been happening? I mean, you know, Teapot Dome Scandal. ![]() But it's not been the major driving factor that I've seen, and certainly in the corporate cases. Obviously there is greed encapsulated in that. I mean the concept isn't I want more, it's money is the scorecard. I mean there is - or that they deserve a lot of money. Sometimes they're less greed than they are arrogance.Ī lot of these people believe that it's absolutely impossible for them to fail. The ones that are much more complex are the corporate fraud cases. EICHENWALD: You know, I know everybody thinks it's - I mean Madoff, people like that, that's clearly greed. HANSEN: But is it always just a matter of papering over the books, cooking the books? Or, I mean, how much is greed involved? and it gets wider and wider and wider, until you have a massive fraud. When it proves not to be a bump in the road but a chasm in the road, the paper becomes lumber. And within the company there's this mindset of, well, this is a bump in the road we'll just paper it over. At some point or another, they were the darlings of Wall Street. I mean, think of every company you just listed. Usually where these cases arise are companies that the market has very high expectations for and ultimately have problems with their financials. Corporate fraud is not usually begun by here's a bad guy in a company who does bad things. Do you think these are aberrations or are they indicative of a larger culture of corruption and fraud? I mean Enron for one, Worldcom, Columbia HCA Health Care and Archer Daniels Midland. HANSEN: During the years you were with The New York Times, you covered a lot of corporate scandals. Each fraud led into another, led into another and, you know, as long as you have a system where you can make money if you lie, people will lie. And when I first started I thought it would last about 18 months. I wrote about corporate fraud virtually the entire time. ![]() I mean, I was at The New York Times for almost 20 years. EICHENWALD: As much as I respect the idea, it's wishful thinking. HANSEN: First of all, what do you think of the president's declaration about quick kills and bloated bonuses and going after them? Do you think he can or is it wishful thinking? KURT EICHENWALD (Author, "The Informant: A True Story"): Glad to be here. The new movie is based on his book, "The Informant: A True Story." And he joins us from the studios of Cake Mix Recording in Dallas, Texas. HANSEN: Kurt Eichenwald is an investigative writer. President BARACK OBAMA: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Last week, President Obama pledged to crackdown on the financial industry. Executives there were accused of orchestrating a worldwide conspiracy to fix prices.Ĭorruption and greed are no strangers to parts of corporate America. It's based on a late-1990s case against the conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. Although the movie is sometimes played for laughs, the real story was no laughing matter. "The Informant" opened in theaters on Friday. ![]()
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