...that there were actually more cons than pros. * * As mentioned in the report LIBOR has been the catalyst for fraud and unfair play in the past years. This being said I cannot see this reform in LIBOR go the right way for either party. The FED might have already lost the trust of many people around the world with the scandals of late that have taken place. Many people were hurt when they took out loans and LIBOR was artificially high. However, when LIBOR was artificially low people paid less than they should have. This is a small example on the controversy of whether or not LIBOR should be reformed or completely thrown out the window. * * LIBOR is a very important index, which serves as a benchmark for derivatives. Being the most widely used interested rate in the world, it is not easy to just throw it out the window, as many people who were on the brunt of the scandal would wish. * * I believe that LIBOR is not as risk-free as we think it is. I believe that the scandals that were taken place proved that. Many people lost their savings and not only were the savings lost, but the banks that were the cause of the scandal were stealing it. This, I believe speaks for itself to answer the question if LIBOR is as risk-free as we think it is. I believe we were led to believe that is was a fixed fair rate, however we have seen that it can be manipulated and artificially fixed in ways in which we can lose our money. This is a big reason why I believe...
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...scandalous and creates wide seethe and uproar from the public who are the ultimate victims of these scandals. For many reformers and speakers it may take ages to bring a matter of public concern in front of people, which when scandalized became notoriously famous without any help. For example wiki leaks had generated mass curiosity around the world about the facts and events which were otherwise completely obscure and esoteric to general public. With increased freedom of the forth estate everything is out in the open ,all political scandals ,social scandals and even financial scandals are watched ,scrutinized and are brought to justice. In the 21st centaury where social networking has dissolved all the known physical boundaries, a scandal of one country is a popular talk of another continent, people discuss ,debate and provide solution to the problem which arose because of the so called scandal, which we can never imagine happening half a century ago. The Bernie Madoffs in famous embezzlement scandal has created waves of dissatisfaction among the masses, and demanded higher level of probe and investigation in the matter. The Italian prime minister’s sex scandal has stumped the world and raised questions about the moral conduct about the leader. No reformer or speakers could have generated such wide spread awareness about a issue or a problem within the society .Thus scandals play a major roles in generating general awareness and finding root cause for a problem ,which...
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...Mr. May APLAC December 16 2012 Jack Abramoff Corruption in governments inspires frantic media coverage and people to lose faith in politics. The United States has a long history of these scandals that has initiated some concern about the way the government is run. Jack Abramoff, a once powerful lobbyist, was recently involved in one of the largest scandals in Washington. Abramoff rose from, generally, nothing to becoming America’s most notorious lobbyist. When scandal ultimately cast him down, Abramoff was sentenced to four years in federal prison for fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy. While serving his term in jail, he had received vile and harsh insults that depicted him as “scum” and “evil.” Now released from the penitentiary, Abramoff is the author of the novel Capitol Punishment. By writing this book, he tries to expose the truth about the broken the U.S. Government system really is but also justify his actions and hope to redeem little pieces of his honor. Using clever diction, syntax, and numerous appeals to pathos, Jack Abramoff attempts to repent for his actions and gain redemption. Abramoff’s diction allows for the audience to view his actions in an alternative more positive direction, rather than maliciously and with anger. The first few chapters of the book describe his childhood and formative years. His conservative principles and his calculating self brought him early spotlight and success in the political realm. Abramoff, for about the first half of his...
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...leave room for interpretations and the standards never change, which give the impression that there cannot be many, if any, grey area’s which would allow for human judgment to take place. Actually nothing can be further from the truth and as I grew within the army I began to see a natural competition and even a division among the different services in the areas of moral and ethical standards, although all of us fight the same fight there is still a recruiting battle that exist to find, sign and train the best people possible from the civilian ranks and anytime you have that element ,it will cause potential members to “choose sides”. Each of our services has suffered through many different scandals over ethical dilemmas. The Navy in 1991 suffered the infamous “Tailhook Scandal” where Lt. Rebecca Hansen, a trainee helicopter pilot charged that her failing grades were in direct retaliation for her bringing charges against a flight instructor, and later when Gulf War Hero and then Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Stanley Arthur, ruled against her, she then reported the incident to Senator David Durenberger of Minnesota who in turn as the New York Times, Goodman, W. (1996) reported “blocked Commander Robert E. Strumpf’s appointment to the Commander of the Navy in the Pacific”, which is the largest operational...
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...Week 6 tute: Is Responsible Business Important? (Assessed) Research about the ‘phone hacking’ scandal involving News International and be prepared to discuss the following based on the ‘Sorry’ advertisement reproduced below. 1. Identify three key aspects of the ‘phone hacking’ scandal? On 13 November 2005, the News of the World published an article written by royal editor Clive Goodman, claiming that Prince William was in the process of borrowing a portable editing suite. Following the publication, the Prince and royal staff met to try to figure out how the details of their arrangement had been leaked, as only two other people were aware of it, and asked police for investigation. In August 2006, Goodman and private investigator Mulcaire were arrested by the Metropolitan Police, and later charged with hacking the telephones of members of the royal family by accessing voicemail messages. It was first reported by The Guardian on 4 July 2011 that police had found evidence suggesting that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire collected personal information about the family of the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, following her disappearance in March 2002 and the subsequent discovery of her body six months later. According to the paper, journalists working for the News of the World had hired private investigators to hack into Dowler's voicemail inbox while she was still missing. It was alleged that they had deleted some messages, giving false hope to police and to Dowler's...
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...risky investments or creative accounting practices. * Over-recording the sales revenue. * Under-recording expenses i.e. depreciation of expenses. From Enron, WorldCom and HealthSouth, it appears that accounting fraud is a major problem that is increasing in frequency and severity. research evidence has shown that a growing number of frauds have undermined the integrity of financial reports, contributed to substantial economic loses, and destroyed investors' confidence regarding the reliability of financial statements. The increasing rate of white-collar crimes demands stiff penalties and strong punishments. II. Introduction New laws and guidelines have helped reduce, but not eliminate fraud. Enron, WorldCom and HealthSouth scandals were detrimental to the public. Millions of dollars in investments the public made into those companies have been lost. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has taken a strong stance on fraud committed by...
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...Running Head: Is Ethics The Main Reason For Accounting Scandals? Is Ethics The Most Important Reason Behind Years of Accounting Scandals? Joshua A. Williams DeVry University Is Ethics The Main Reason For Accounting Scandals? Ethics: Is It The Most Important Reason Behind Years of Accounting Scandals? Ethics is a term that refers to a code or moral system that provides criteria for evaluating right and wrong (Spiceland, Spe, Tomassini, 2007). An ethical dilemma is a situation in which an individual or group is faced with a decision that tests this code. Many of these dilemmas are simple to recognize and resolve. For example, have you ever been tempted to call your professor and ask for an extension on the due date of an assignment by claiming a fictitious illness? Temptation like this will test your personal ethics. The direct issues when dealing with ethics is that it cannot be measured or quantified it is intangible almost to a fault. A person’s ethical background can be affected by all types of outside forces such as familial background, financial status, and educational backgrounds as well to name a few. Ethical codes are informative and helpful. However, the motivation to behave ethically must come from within oneself and not just from the fear of penalties for violating professional codes (Spiceland, Sepe, Tomassini, 2007). There is specific analytical model which gives a sequence of seven steps that provide a framework for analyzing ethical issues. These...
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...prince of England, and also a captain in the British Army Air Corps. There are a lot of speculations made in the article. Author’s Position The author’s position in this article is one of assumptions. He seems to be trying to make it seem as though Prince Harry will be in a lot of trouble upon his return to England. Stating that he brought “shame” to the British military. He also makes comments like “Harry seems to be having a blast in the photos, one displaying a pool table that Ministry only hopes really was used for a game of strip billiards.” Support The author uses past incidents with Prince William as support in the article. He also uses quotes from citizens of England, and Us Magazine. These are a long shot at best. The Royal Family did not comment on the incident. Nor did Prince Harry. Therefore, there is not much solid evidence used by the author as to whether or not the prince will be reprimanded upon his return. Reliability This article does not seem to have much reliability. It is overwhelmed with assumptions and over dramatizations. The article assumes that because he is a prince he will have consequences to pay for his actions. The article also has quotes from both the author, and citizens. Neither of which, have any actual knowledge or information on the situation. Credibility The fact that this article is from the LA Times should give it some credibility. However, once reading the article has begun, any confidence is quickly shattered...
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...Running head: Work Place Legal Issues Work Place Legal Issues Ethen Royal PSYCHOLOGY 1150 – Project Number 1 R. LA VALLEE January 30, 2011 One of the most talked about legal issues in the work place is Sexual Harassment. Sexual harassment can come from all types of forms in the work place; whether it’s your boss, co-worker, or a customer. Sometimes people tend to take sexual harassment very hard; especially if the individual that’s being harassed is married. This type of issue can be very hard to talk about sometimes, especially if you have the feeling that someone might not believe you. Kaminsky (2006) states that; “Staying in the realm of the government, President Clinton himself came under fire for alleged sexual harassment. Paula Jones was a state employee when Clinton was Governor of Arkansas. In 1991, she claimed that Clinton exposed himself and asked her for oral sex in a hotel room. Clinton denied all allegations. After several rounds of filing, Jones's lawsuit was dismissed for failing to state a claim. During the appeals process, a settlement was reached. Jones dropped her suit against Clinton in exchange for $850,000. However, she never received an admission of guilt or an apology. Jones's allegations paved the way for investigating the President's sex life. The Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment of President Clinton were big follow-ups to the Paula Jones case.” I believe victims of sexual harassment should be taken care of at the upmost. You never...
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...of the forensic accountant; and lastly, 4) The role of the forensic accountant in a couple of major accounting fraud scandals. The world of Accounting has seen several major scandals since the early 1990s. These include major accounting failures such as Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco, Phar-Mor, Cendant, Computer Associates, AOL, Freddie Mac, ImClone, Qwest Communications, Royal Ahold, Health South Corporation, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and most recently the Olympus Corporation. Some of these have resulted in the collapse and dissolution of the company – Enron, Adelphia; others have resulted in a major restructuring of the company – AOL, AIG, Freddie Mac. Whatever the result, they have all been caused by accounting fraud – either “cooking the books” to hide major losses or to hide the theft of funds. It has also resulted in the failure and absorption of the one of the Big Five Accounting firms – Arthur Anderson. Besides the whistle blower who brought most of these to public view and the lawyers who have been involved their dismantling one of the other major role players, though unsung and unknown, has been the Forensic Accountant. We will be taking a look at this last individual or groups of individuals in most cases. We will look at what they do, their “required” skills and role in courtroom and possibly examine their role in a couple of the noted scandals. The Forensic Account What is a forensic accountant? Bolgna...
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...ACCOUNTING FRAUDS CONTENTS WHAT ARE FRAUDS? | WHAT ARE ACCOUNTING FRAUDS? | NOTABLE FRAUDS | NOTABLE OUTCOMES | MANIPULATION & FALSIFICATION OF RECORDS | MISAPPROPRIATION OF CASH BALANCES | MISAPPROPRIATION OF GOODS | TEEMING & LADING | WINDOW DRESSING | SECRET RESERVES | ENRON FRAUD | WORLDCOM FRAUD | WHAT ARE FRAUDS ??? FRAUDS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS Misstatements in the financial statements can arise from fraud. In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual, Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud Industries most commonly effected by fraud are banking, manufacturing, and government. Fraud can be committed through many media, including mail, wire, phone, and the Internet (computer crime and Internet fraud). * The term “fraud” refers to an intentional act by one or more individuals among management, those charged with governance, employees or third parties, involving the use of deception to obtain an unjust or illegal advantage. Although fraud is a broad legal concept, the auditor is concerned with fraudulent acts that cause a material misstatement in the financial statements. Misstatement of the financial statements may not be the objective of some frauds. Auditors do not make legal determinations of whether fraud has actually occurred. Fraud involving one or more members of...
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...The issue is about scandals and focusing attention on problems. The statement about whether scandals are more useful than speakers or reformers in focusing attention on problems is a complex one. Scandals have both a good side and a bad side in the process of revealing problems. And speakers and reformers are irreplaceable by scandals. On the one hand, scandals are useful to attract the public attention to the seriousness of the problem such as corruption, food safety and murder which is hard to be tackled by speaker and reformer in China. Scandals, which reflect the ugliness of human nature, provide a valuable clue to trace back to the source of the problems. Take an example from China to illustrate this point, Zhengfu Lei, whose sex media was leaked out from the internet firstly, was soon caught with discovery of corruption. Surprisingly, He was considered to be a decent official in the past years. It can be seen the power of scandal in this example. Corruption is ubiquitous in the world, and laws cannot bring the criminals to justice easily and effectively without the help of scandals. Even if speakers and reformers racked their minds, it cannot rival a small story of scandals. On the other hand, scandals will also move the public attention from the real matter itself to something largely irrelevant. Sometimes people are more interesting in the scandals than tackling problems when the problem is not so big or it doesn’t have detrimental to their interests. For example...
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...invented the trading of communications, power, and weather securities. It dominated the trading and instead of being successful, it became the largest financial scandal in history as a symbol of well-planned corporate fraud. Enron created the phony California electricity crisis. There was never a shortage of power in California. Phone recordings between Enron traders and California power plant operators reveal the traders asking plant managers to "get a little creative" in shutting down plants for "repairs." About 30 to 50 percent of California's energy plants shut down as suggested by the traders as Enron drove the price of electricity nine times higher. By November 2001, after a series of scandals associated with their accounting practices, Enron stood at the edge of the largest bankruptcy in history. Enron was thought to be a blue chip stock but there bankruptcy caused a terrible event in the financial world. The executives at Enron were indicted on different charges and were sent to prison. Employees and stockholders lost billions of dollars, while the lawsuits provided very little money in return. Because of this scandal, new regulations were developed to improve the reliability of the financial reporting and require the accounting firms to be independent of their clients. The regulations should prevent the scandal experienced with...
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...Global Perspectives on Accounting Education Volume 3, 2006, 27-48 ENRON AND ARTHUR ANDERSEN: THE CASE OF THE CROOKED E AND THE FALLEN A Gary M. Cunningham Visiting Professor Department of Business Administration Åbo Akademi University Turku, Finland Jean E. Harris Accounting Department Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg Campus School of Business Administration Middletown, Pennsylvania USA ABSTRACT Outside the US, the failures of Enron and Arthur Andersen remain puzzles. How could the accounting and audit failures associated with Enron and Arthur Andersen happen in the US where auditing is sophisticated, accounting principles are strong, and disclosure is emphasized? This is a teaching case for persons outside the US to review the financial reporting and auditing issues related to Enron and to explain the regulation of accounting and auditing in the US. It has broad implications for corporate governance and accounting regulation in other countries as well. n the years after the Enron Corporation declared bankruptcy in 2001 and Arthur Andersen failed in 2002, people are still asking, especially those outside the US, how could this happen? What went wrong? The US has a well-developed set of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that requires extensive disclosures in audited financial statements, and a well-established federal agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that monitors financial reporting. This case is written for accounting students and...
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...Paramount News brings you a special coverage of Princess Ann's visit to London, the first stop on her much publicised goodwill tour of European capitals. She gets a royal welcome from the British as thousands cheer the gracious young member of one of Europe's oldest ruling families. After three days of continuous activity and a visit to Buckingham Palace, Ann flew to Amsterdam where Her Royal Highness dedicated the new International Aid Building and christened an ocean liner. Then went to Paris where she attended many official functions designed to cement trade relations between her country and the Western European nations. And so to Rome, the eternal city, where the Princess' visit was marked by a spectacular military parade highlighted by the band of the crack Piersa Yeri Regiment. The smiling young Princess showed no sign of the strain of the week's continuous public appearances. And at her country's embassy that evening, a formal reception and ball in her honor was given by her country's ambassador to Italy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (The Embassy ballroom. People fill the floor of the room. A fanfare sounds. The Master of Ceremonies appears and the people clear a path down the middle of the hall in front of him. The Master of Ceremonies announces "Her Royal Highness"--first in Italian, then in English.) (The orchestra starts playing as the Master of Ceremonies walks down the newly-formed aisle. Princess Ann, resplendent...
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