[Petronski]

Yeah, there's never been fraud in Europe. Right.

[B.O. Plenty]

You have to wonder what is being taught at business schools for the last 20 years.....surely not fraud and deception? Or maybe they are not putting enough emphasis on the techniques of how not to get caught......

[crypt2k]

1) I've never even heard of World Com!

2) Let's not forget about the German disease, the French disease, the Russian disease, etc.

3) My mutual fund has dropped 50% in the last 9 months, and today I'm withdrawing the remains.

[general_re]

This is crap. Until recently, trying to figure out something simple, like, say, if a company listed on the Dax (and not listed on a US exchange)) was even profitable was an exercise in aggravation. The Euros have had some of the most obtuselyfuzzy accounting and disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies for decades now, but suddenly they're going to sieze the moral high ground? I think not.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Yeah, right. The accounting at Metallgesellschaft was just dandy.

[mondonico]

OK. And Communism, socialism, Nazism, and genocide are European diseases.

[SunStar]

I guess the disease is that they actually get caught eventually here in the States...

[ChasingFletch]

"Complexity is the enemy of good accounting,"......

Greed and underhanded deals are the enemy of good accounting.

Does anyone have a list of all these companies that have had to fold under the weight of their own corruption lately? Is there a source on this subject?

[Timesink]

Boy, are these absurd, arrogant asses about to be in for a RUDE surprise. It's only a matter of time until a European company gets caught doing the same thing. And then another. And then another. Finance these days is an internation business. If this crap was going on in the US, it's a virtual guarantee it's also going on in Europe, Asia, Australia, on and on. The only difference is that the securities regulators in all those countries are members of the same snooty, socialist chattering classes as the board members of the companies they claim to monitor. The powerful protecting the powerful, as O'Reilly likes to say. This will work for a while, but eventually all the accounting tricks in the world will be unable to stop the collapse of a company that truly doesn't have any money.

[1rudeboy]

Our bubble burst first. (While most of their economies were in recession). Their time will come.

[Tijeras_Slim]

And yet these euro-trashniks still love the 'toon.

[gunnedah]

Greed and Fraud are not prevalent only in the USA,it is all over the globe.But here we always have the RULE OF LAW to protect the rich and powerful.

[Billthedrill]

Corruption is no more prevalent in the U.S. than in Europe. Getting caught at it is.