Corporate Malfeasance Frequently Unasked Questions

Another hundred million dollars in lawyers fees.

Parmalat is the sound of an Italian hitting his or her forehead with his or her wallet when he or she realizes that his or her life savings have just been lost.

Do? Do! She didn't have to doooo anything! She was paid for her obvious and utter fabulousness!

In the magical realm known as the stock market, all investors are equal, but some investors are more equal than others. To your or I, the closing bell means the end of trading, a necessary respite from the efforts of the day, an opportunity to lick our wounds and gird ourselves for the economic battles that are to come. However, to a lucky few, the closing bell is just one more opportunity to make a killing. For, when special intelligence arrives - a scandal, perhaps, or news of a successful merger - this lucky few can trade when nobody else can. Of course, the money they make is usually lost by those who are not among the select, but, well, economic inequalities were always thus.

If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it.

Hmm. Fastow's punishment works out to about $130,769,230 a week, or $778,388 an hour. Who wouldn't want his work to be worth that? Still, the punishment does seem to be small compared to the damage Enron did. One can only imagine how much harsher Fastow's sentence would have been had he been caught bilking California citizens while smoking marijuana.

Guns don't kill pheasants, crown corporations trying to curry favour with their political bosses kill pheasants.

Absolutely. And, there's a simple formula to prove it. Take the number of stars known to exist in our galaxy. Multiply that by the number of galaxies believed to exist in the universe. Now, divide that by the number of stars likely to have planets around them. Continue to divide by the number of those planets likely to have atmospheres and other conditions conducive to life. Continue to divide by the number of those planets that are likely to have evolved sufficiently to have discovered Survivor: Inuqtualut. You'll probably end up with a number between three and 20,000. This would be the number of planets which have life forms sufficiently advanced to be jurors at the Martha Stewart trial. Of course, they are likely millions of light years away, so getting them to the courtroom in a timely fashion may be a problem. Perhaps a closed circuit television feed would help.

A figment of Conrad Black's imagination.

The patron saint of imaginary boards of directors.

You're learning, grasshopper. Now, ponder this: if the announcement of the appointment of a director is made, but the announced person has not agreed to become a director, has shareholder value increased?

Twenty-one million dollars? Only $21 million? Robert Milton doesn't get out of bed for less than $21 million. Andy Fastow would eat Lett for breakfast and spit out the bankruptcy notices. No, Lett is small potatoes...and it's a sad comment when somebody who steals $21 million can be considered small potatotes.

Hollinger wannabes.

Air Canada wannabes. And, how pathetic is that?