ABSTRACT
Enron's top managers—especially chief Ken Lay—used its fleet of corporate jets as a personal limo service, transporting family members around the world, from the playgrounds of southern France to car races in Canada and vacations in Mexican resorts. Just as in previous scandal-ridden eras, the crooks, liars, and envelope-pushers of the late 1990s operated along a spectrum of sleaze. The Tyco and Adelphia stories, while reprehensible, are pretty straightforward. In fact, GAAP allows business managers to make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such judgments every time they sit down to prepare a financial statement. Enron, which once aspired to be known as "the world's greatest company," became a different kind of symbol—shorthand for all that was wrong with corporate America. Its bankruptcy marked not merely the death of a company but the end of an era. Moving along the spectrum from the crooks and rogues, next in line are the liars, fibbers, and envelope-pushers.
