Worldcom, can I have a word with you?

The BBQ Pit
1

Yeah, you. You really screwed up, not just for investors but for a lot of people you employ and those that are support jobs within communities.

Here’s an example:

You moved yourselves into Colorado Springs, where I live, and according to information I found on the 'net and employ 4,300 people currently. This is excellent work! You came here in the early 90s and helped our ailing economy here rebound and it brought other employers too. This not only affects the 4,300 people you employ here but you also have created other jobs that support your employees.

Your employees and their families need: haircuts, doctors, dentists, groceries, restaurants, movies, clothes, homes, gas, lawn mowers, snow blowers, cars, bicycles, churchs, police protection, concerts, cell phones, schooling, etc.

All these needs create jobs here in Colorado Springs. With 4,300 to support I don’t know the exact amount of jobs you have helped create here but I am sure it’s quite a few. You are also the largest private employer in our fair city.

So now you go and make a huge mistake that not only infects the lives of the investors and stock holders but you have really done a disservice to the people (communities) your company is required to support your employees.

You see, because your employees work for you, they need goods and services but now you did it. You are going to end up laying off 17,000 employees and any community that has you as an employer will suffer even greater than you think. People rely upon other people for the exchange of money and your mistake really is gonna mess with a lot more lives than just your employees. It has not been reported how many you are to lay off here in C Springs but even 1/4 of those you employ here will hit our local economy greatly.

I am all for Capitalism, all for it but you failed to realize that even in a free market economy you as a company is responsible for conducting business in a fair and honest way. Every business ethics class, I am sure, would teach you that what you do affects those around you. Crap, I learned that as child that all my actions have an effect or is that affect, on those around me.

Anyhow, I am not concerned with my grammar or spelling but I want to ask you this:

What in the fuck were you thinking? :smack:

2

Er, no, actually, in a free market economy they as a company are responsible for making a profit.

Period.

And the ethics of it can go hang. :frowning:

3

I realize they are responsible for making a profit, isn’t that the goal of all working people in the US, to make more than they spend so they can retire and live a nice life?

YES, but the thing is, every company has a responsibility to conduct and take actions for the good of all. At least that is what my father always taught me and he was the owner and president of his company till he retired. Oddly enough, his company went into the ground about 2 years after he retired…the management/owners of the company had no ethics and felt no responsibility to it’s customers and employees. At the hieght of his business, he employed 250 people. Not bad for a man who’s father started the company out of his utility room.

They went beyond making a profit and decieved and hurt a lot of people in the process. This goes beyond capitalism and goes towards criminal. Yes, the goal is profit, but the profit here obviously didn’t exist and they hid that from everyone that is involved. I don’t think that the basics of Capitalism would deny that responsibility has some kind of role in business. I also realize that the beginnings of Capitalism wasn’t that way.

But somehow, someway, there is a horrible moral issue to address as well. Someone had to get rich off this, someone had to and he/she will definately be frying in hell over this.

Between Enron and Worldcom, there are a lot of people that got really hurt in the process. Not only will many of my neighbors be affected (they are reporting that virtually all the employees here are facing lay offs) but my cousin was escorted out of his Anderson office when they did the lay offs there during the Enron shit. He was an accountant with them and when they fired him, they made sure that no documents or disks were taken out with him.

4

And what the fuck were KMPG THINKING???

This is precisely why we don’t use computerised audit programmes kiddies.

This didn’t happen in my nation so I pretty much think that I shouldn’t comment about the economic policies which allowed this to happen.

I’m just absolutely amazed that you didn’t see this one coming. I’m sitting here RIGHT now in a nation where it has become pretty well impossible to get medical insurance.

You simply MUST be able to sue the auditors who signed off on the Worldcom financial statements.

I hate the fact that a lot of people have lost their retirement money. I love the fact that ozemail is going to be out of business come Monday.

5

KPMG? I think Andersen are in more trouble, but given that Andersen won’t exist shortly suing may not bring relief to anyone. There are no real winners in this situation.

6

I’m not aware of any mistakes. It was fraud, pure and simple. Wasn’t it ?

There are winners, Matt: For example, the Chief Exec with the $400 personal loan from WorldCom…assuming he made money with that loan.

7

Make that $400 million.

8

Ah. I had hoped he would face some kind of charges for that kind of activity. Maybe not.

9

What’s the problem?
You spend the money, you lose the money, it all comes off the same side of the books don’t it?

10

Anderson was the auditor through the first quarter 2002, and was replaced by KPMG.

I agree with DDG. Companies responsibility rely solely with its shareholders. However, (IMNSHO) companies that employ ethical practices profit in the long run. Companies that employ Enron or Worldcom like practices eventually implode, but often not before several members have made gagillions (or is that gajillions?) of dollars. That kind of money blinds too many people to right and wrong (especially when those gagillions of dollars are in unexercised stock options where you need to boost the stock price to a certain level to profit).

11

I was being nice in my post till I hit the big “What the fuck were you thinking?” part. That was just talking it up until the finale.

12

Thou shalt nor trust thy audit team…

If auditing hadn’t been computerised, this would have been picked up so fast.

Buh-bye auditors. And why the fuck weren’t they investigated when the FIRST Andersen fuck up was revealed?

Never really liked or trusted KPMG anyway - it’s about time auditors started to learn how to use the green pencil again.

13

reprise: all audit firms work the same way these days, more or less. An ‘investigation’ wouldn’t have completed in time to make any difference, and I don’t know what you would expect it to find: at the moment, there’s no evidence of collusion (maybe incompetence, but that’s another story).

And auditors do still tick-and-bash, but it’s not much use at giant telecoms companies. If it worries you I’d be looking nervously at ever single audit firm, Big Five or not, because you’d be hard pressed to spot one doing it differently.

14

Pif! Paf! Poof! And like magic, both KPMG and PwC are involved in Xerox’s financial woes.