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“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.
Insider trading. Savings and loan scandals. Enron. Corporate crimes were once thought of as victimless offenses, but now—with billions of dollars and an increasingly global economy at stake—this is understood to be far from the truth. The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime explores the complex interplay of factors involved when corporate cultures normalize lawbreaking, and when organizational behavior is pushed to unethical (and sometimes inhumane) limits. Featuring original contributions from a panel of experts representing North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia, this timely volume presents multidisciplinary views on recent corporate wrongdoing affecting economic and social conditions worldwide. Criminal liability and intent Stock market and financial crime Bribery and extortion Computer and identity fraud Health care fraud Crime in the professions Industrial pollution Political corruption War crimes and genocide Contributors offer case studies, historical and sociopolitical analyses, theoretical and legal perspectives, and comparative studies, featuring examples as varied as NASA, Parmalat, the Italian government, and Watergate. Criminal justice responses to these phenomena, the role of the media in exposing or minimizing them, prevention, regulation, and self- policing strategies, and larger global issues emerging from economic crime are also featured. Richly diverse in its coverage, The International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime is stimulating reading for students, academics, and professionals in a wide range of fields, from criminology and criminal justice to business and economics, psychology to social policy to ethics. This powerful information is certain to change many of our deeply held views on criminal behavior.
His Majesty being powerful, his heart stout, none could stand before him.. All his territory was ablaze with fire, and he burned every foriegn country with his hot breath. Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II. The bowmen of His Majesty spent six hours of destruction among them. They were delivered to the sword. Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah. May my father know the enemy ships came. My cities were burned and evil things were done in my country. King of the city of Ugarit to the king of Cyprus. Since there is famine in your house we will starve to death...The living soul of your country you will see no longer. To a Hittite offical stationed in Ugarit. Israel is laid waste, his seed is not. Pharaoh Merneptah. Pharaoh's chariots and his army He cast into the Sea...Book of Exodus. Egypt was adrift and every man was thrown out of his right. There was no leader for years..Pharaoh Ramesses IV. As they (the Sea Peoples) were coming forward toward Egypt, their hearts relying upon their hands, a net was prepared for them....My strong arm has overthrown those who came to exalt themselves. Pharaoh Ramesses III. [of the Greeks] These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades. Greek writer Hesiod. Returning to Luxor, Egypt, by Nile ship. The author has visited many of the significant archaeological sites mentioned in this book. Front cover, top, Troy VI by Lloyd K. Townsend, bottom, Pharaoh Thotmose IV.
Forbes: the legendary name in finance journalism. Synonymous with wealth, grand excess, glamour, and fun as well as style, insight, gossip, and hard-nosed reporting, the media empire and the family behind it form a remarkable story that has never been told. Now, in The Fall of the House of Forbes, veteran journalist Stewart Pinkerton reveals the hidden machinations, disastrous decisions, and personal foibles of a century-old dynasty that rose to glittering heights and crashed just as spectacularly. Writing from an insider's perspective and first-hand sources developed over his twenty years as a writer and editor at Forbes, Pinkerton takes us to the ritualized formal lunches inside the mansion-like headquarters at 60 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan; the lavish advertiser parties on board the family yacht, The Highlander; the sybaritic private life of Malcolm Forbes and the family's increasing discomfort with its patriarch; and the glory days of the magazine, with its news-making stories, high-rolling expense accounts, and bar-setting standards for anyone who aspired to wealth and its trappings. But as the media business changed, Forbes was slow to react, and found itself burdened by Malcolm's immense personal expenses, Steve Forbes's bumbling, self-financed presidential campaigns, and the family's hubris and hesitation in the face of reality. A series of devastating business decisions and an internecine struggle for power forced the sale of the Faberge eggs, the vintage toy collection, the homes, the private island, the yacht, and finally the sale of 40% of the company itself to outside investors...a collapse of shocking speed after decades of unsurpassed success. A compelling narrative account of a powerful family's dysfunction, The Fall of the House of Forbes is a parable of capitalism at its best and worst, and a metaphor for the current state of digital turmoil in media.
Rule of law has vanished in America’s criminal justice system. Prosecutors decide whom to punish; most accused never face a jury; policing is inconsistent; plea bargaining is rampant; and draconian sentencing fills prisons with mostly minority defendants. A leading criminal law scholar looks to history for the roots of these problems—and solutions.
Once upon a time ethnographers returning from the field simply sat down, shuffled their note cards, and wrote up their descriptions of the exotic and quaint customs they had observed. Today scholars in all disciplines are realizing how their research is presented is at least as important as what is presented. Questions of voice, style, and audience--the classic issues of rhetoric--have come to the forefront in academic circles. John Van Maanen, an experienced ethnographer of modern organizational structures, is one who believes that the real work begins when he returns to his office with cartons of notes and tapes. In Tales of the Field he offers readers a survey of the narrative conventions associated with writing about culture and an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of various styles. He introduces first the matter-of-fact, realistic report of classical ethnography, then the self-absorbed confessional tale of the participant-observer, and finally the dramatic vignette of the new impressionistic style. He also considers, more briefly, literary tales, jointly told tales, and the theoretically focused formal and critical tales. Van Maanen illustrates his discussion of each style with excerpts from his own work on the police. Tales of the Field offers an informal, readable, and lighthearted treatment of the rhetorical devices used to present the results of fieldwork. Though Van Maanen argues ultimately for the validity of revealing the self while representing a culture, he is sensitive to the differing methods and aims of sociology and anthropology. His goal is not to establish one true way to write ethnography, but rather to make ethnographers of all varieties examine their assumptions about what constitutes a truthful cultural portrait and select consciously and carefully the voice most appropriate for their tales. Written with grace and humor, Tales of the Field will be an invaluable introduction to novices just learning the fieldwork trade and provocative stimulant to veteran ethnographers. "Engaging and well written."--H. Ottenheimer, Choice
On the night of November 9, 1989, massive crowds surged toward the Berlin Wall, drawn by an announcement that caught the world by surprise: East Germans could now move freely to the West. The Wall—infamous symbol of divided Cold War Europe—seemed to be falling. But the opening of the gates that night was not planned by the East German ruling regime—nor was it the result of a bargain between either Ronald Reagan or George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was an accident. In The Collapse, prize-winning historian Mary Elise Sarotte reveals how a perfect storm of decisions made by daring underground revolutionaries, disgruntled Stasi officers, and dictatorial party bosses sparked an unexpected series of events culminating in the chaotic fall of the Wall. With a novelist’s eye for character and detail, she brings to vivid life a story that sweeps across Budapest, Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig and up to the armed checkpoints in Berlin. We meet the revolutionaries Roland Jahn, Aram Radomski, and Siggi Schefke, risking it all to smuggle the truth across the Iron Curtain; the hapless Politburo member Günter Schabowski, mistakenly suggesting that the Wall is open to a press conference full of foreign journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw; and Stasi officer Harald Jäger, holding the fort at the crucial border crossing that night. Soon, Brokaw starts broadcasting live from Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where the crowds are exulting in the euphoria of newfound freedom—and the dictators are plotting to restore control. Drawing on new archival sources and dozens of interviews, The Collapse offers the definitive account of the night that brought down the Berlin Wall.
Society has collapsed. The world burns. Yet, somehow, humanity survives...In The Storm and A Brave New World, author Christine D. Shuck showed us the collapse of society through the eyes of bold, brave survivor Jess. Now, in the third book in this intense and evocative post-apocalyptic saga, we witness the end of the world through the experiences of other familiar faces.Through nine interconnected episodes, discover the stories behind the stories: Resonant and emotional tales of love, loss, survival, and triumph that paint a vivid and frighteningly believable picture of America in the midst of societal collapse. Existing fans of the War's End series will rediscover characters they've already met on Jess's fraught journey - while new readers will be swept up in storytelling that has been described as "unforgettable" and "heartbreaking, but uplifting." Either way, it's impossible not to be moved by the achingly human tales that challenge us all to wonder how we'd handle the end of the world.
Based on reporting for which the author was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Gerald Loeb Award, this book traces the rise and spectacular fall of Washington Mutual.
Dope Rider is back in town! After a 30-year hiatus, Paul Kirchner brought back to life his iconic, bony stoner hero whose first adventures were a staple of the psychedelic counter-culture magazine High Times in the 1970s and 1980s. The new stories collected in this book were all created after 2015 and despite the years, Dope Rider has stayed essentially the same, still smoking his ever-present joint, getting high and chasing metaphysical dragons through whimsical realities in meticulously illustrated and colorful one-page adventures. Fans of the original Dope Rider comics will still find the bold graphical innovations, dubious puns and wild dreamscapes inspired by classical painting and western movies that were some of Dope Rider’s trademark. This time though, Kirchner draws from a much larger panel of influences, including modern pop – and pot – culture (lines and characters from Star Wars as well as references to Denver as the US weed capital can be found here and there) and a wider range of artistic references, from Alice in Wonderland to 2001: A Space Odyssey to Ed Roth’s Kustom Kulture. Native American culture and mythology, only hinted at in the classic adventures, is also much more present in the form of Chief, one of Dope Rider’s new sidekicks. Kirchner’s playful, tongue-in-cheek humor binds together all these influences into stories that mock both the mundane and the nonsensical alike. Paul Kirchner lives in Connecticut. He started his career in the 1970s as an assistant to Wally Wood. His original Dope Rider stories are collected among other early works in the book Awaiting the Collapse. He also created the bus, a surrealistic monthly strip published in Heavy Metal magazine from 1979 to 1985 and illustrated the graphic detective novel Murder by Remote Control written by Janwillem van de Wetering. Paul Kirchner went back to comics during the 2010s with the bus 2 in 2015 and Hieronymus & Bosch in 2018. He continues to insist he has never used drugs, not even for research purposes.