Wednesday, January 7

Satyam's Fraud Just the Latest Cockroach To Emerge

So, apparently the exportation of America's culture is alive and well.  It just has a bit of a lag.  Satyam's founder disclosed that he had been falsifying accounts in a yarn that starts to smell a lot like Enron.  (Eww, smelly yarn.)  And why not?  So many people got so rich doing it in the U.S., why not try it in countries that have weaker regulatory and legal structures?
We'll be seeing much more of this as time goes on and the repression starts to uncover the warts that a bull market tends to hide.  In investing it's called the cockroach theory.  Financial mistatements and fraud are like cockroaches, once you see one, you can bet there is happy family of a thousand or so living snugly somewhere under your cabinets.  You'll be a stomping, pesticide-spraying fool for months to come!

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