Wall Street analysts estimate that over one trillion dollars in the value of those companies’ stocks has vanished and that doesn’t count the billions (perhaps hundreds of billions) of dollars in bonds for which an accounting is yet to be made. Enron has notified the SEC that it may have overstated its assets last year by as much as $24 billion and that its financial statements as far back as 1997 are not reliable. The company did not even attempt to file the required reports for the quarter ended in March.
The "problems" are not limited to energy producing and trading companies. Implicated in the scandals are retailers like K-Mart (an FBI criminal investigation), security analysts, brokerage houses, insurance companies, auditors and consultants, large investment banks and even bond rating services. Banks like CitiGroup, Credit Suisse First Boston and J. P. Morgan Chase find themselves victims of their own greed in participating in the scams as well as targets of lawsuits and investigations by hapless investors and regulatory agencies. It almost seems like a game of musical chairs where there were not enough chairs when the Ponzi schemes collapsed. Companies like Enron and Global Crossing, although in bankruptcy, ended up with most of the money for which an accounting has not yet been made.
The "problems" are not limited to energy producing and trading companies. Implicated in the scandals are retailers like K-Mart (an FBI criminal investigation), security analysts, brokerage houses, insurance companies, auditors and consultants, large investment banks and even bond rating services. Banks like CitiGroup, Credit Suisse First Boston and J. P. Morgan Chase find themselves victims of their own greed in participating in the scams as well as targets of lawsuits and investigations by hapless investors and regulatory agencies. It almost seems like a game of musical chairs where there were not enough chairs when the Ponzi schemes collapsed. Companies like Enron and Global Crossing, although in bankruptcy, ended up with most of the money for which an accounting has not yet been made.