After looking at several new earnings bombs, AIG, Delphi, GM,Ford

[KlatooBNikto]

I wonder if it has reached a stage when most of our corporations are unable to make a profit the old fashioned way,i.e earning it? Do they have to resort to cooking the books, use creative accounting and avoid paying taxes in this country by setting up shell companies in Cayman Islands?

I take the words of John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Corporation as an ominous warning.He says that he wants Cisco to be thought of as more of a Chinese or Indian corporation than an American Corporation. Is that going to be the future for most of our companies?

[hatrack]

1. The most profitable piece of General Motors?

Their home mortgage division.

[Bruce McAuley]

2. Probably most of our large corporations...

Will be looking to get out of the US as soon as they can. The dollar is plummeting versus the Euro, and the labor and employment standards are minimal in India and China, so these companies are looking for the exit as fast as they can. I sure would if I was the CEO of a large corporation here in the US.
Money trumps patriotism every time.

Bruce

[Mr_Spock]

3. We get shown videos of Chinese people with English subtitles

It's so insulting - our work is not even presented - only how we are expanding by building these massive city-factories in China. All of the engineering and other high-paying jobs are going to China as well - because they are low-paying jobs in China! One number stuck in my head from the last presentation - 9,000 beds!!!!!
9,000 beds!!! Our companies are building cities in China - while they ignore us and wait for attrition to dwindle us down to nothing (or shut us down if we don't see the writing on the wall). We are headed for seriously hard times - and only Lou Dobbs on CNN has been willing to present the downfall of our country.

[rooboy]

4. It's a predictable side effect of the public corporation...

CEO's get offered packages based on performance NOW, or share price NOW, not later. Cooking the books is a short term way of making the targets look like they've been attained so that the execs can collect on the bonuses in their contracts.

I left a multinational public company about 12 years ago because I realized that any long term suggestions I had would most likely be ignored by the management. It was then I understood that the only way my CEO was keeping his job was by acting in the most short term manner possible.

[KlatooBNikto]

5. One of the most outrgaeous examples of looting a public

corporations that I am aware of occurred with a company called Computer Associates. The CEO, the President and another corporate officer had the board approve of huge bonuses for all three if the stock price stayed above $58 for three or four consecutive quarters. So, they cooked the books to make it look like that was the case. And, lo and behold, these three guys walked out with $600 Millions for the CEO, $400 Million for the Preisdent and $200 Million for the third guy. The comapny is now in dire straits.No surprise there.

[Toots]

6. How very Republican of them..

I would be willing to bet that a good portion of that (loot) ended up in Republican coffers..:shrug:

[rooboy]

7. Software companies.... I worked for one like that.

Although its numbers were nowhere near as big as CA, I contracted to a company that raised a whole heap of money in an IPO and basically had no product to market. The money was gone in just a couple of months.