From: "Gary Britt" 

Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia (didn't have falsified books just top corporate
offices that forgot they couldn't treat the company as their own private
venture AFTER they took it public), a couple others, and that's really it
George.

The numbers weren't faked in the internet bubble people bought shares based
on "expected" future profits ignoring the fact that the company
had never yet made a profit.  People bought stock in the end just expecting
it to go up and didn't care or in a lot of cases even look at the financial
info of the underlying company.  AOL had NEVER made a profit in 12 years
but bought a real company with its worthless pieces of paper.  I remember
one example where a particular company's stock was shooting up for some
reason, and people must have been going to its website and looking at the
old press releases and links to business partners because all of a sudden
the business partner's stocks started shooting up.  Problem was one of the
primary business partners listed had filed bankruptcy a few months before
this, but that didn't trouble the numbskull investors bidding up its stock
and throwing their money away.

The pressure to falsify earnings came well into and towards the end of the
internet bubble George.  These companies had been telling investors next
quarter will be profitable or more profitable for years, and they had to
come up with ever more creative ways to keep the shell game going. 
However, the companies that went for illegal means as opposed to legal
"pro forma" statements that willing investors chose to believe in
spite of all common sense to the contrary were relatively few in number
George.

Gary

"Geo"  wrote in message
news:447b3aa6$2{at}w3.nls.net...
> "Mark"  wrote in message
news:447a3144{at}w3.nls.net...
>
>> billions. Sure, the investment potential was oversold, but not based on
> true
>> (or falsified) numbers.
>
> Enron, Worldcom, etc etc.
>
> Everyone was showing profits where there were none.
>
> Geo.
>
>

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