Every boom puts crooks in at the top.
It is easy to look good in a boom. But also, every boom—and I have lived and worked through four or five—puts crooks in at the top. In January 1930, my first assignment as a young journalist was to cover the trial of the top management of what had been Europe’s biggest and proudest insurance company, who had systematically plundered their company—and so it goes after every boom. The only thing new is that the last boom considerably increased the temptation to fake the books—the exclusive emphasis on quarterly figures, the overemphasis on the stock price, the well-meant but idiotic belief that executives should have major financial stakes in the company, the stock ...
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