>I think *you're* out of sync with current reality here, Doug. Off
>the top of my head, I can cite Xerox, Lucent, Cendant, Rite Aid, and
>Cisco as examples of major companies that have had either huge
>accounting scandals of late -- long undiscovered by supposedly crack
>auditors -- or grave suspicions concerning their bookkeeping. This
>vaunted "transparency" is just so much, ah, PR puffery.
That these were scandals which eventually came to light and which typically came with severe punishment of the stock price (not to mention an SEC investigation) suggests that these aren't norms.
Doug