The Business of Maintaining American Business
Gary Kemper, of Banks, Oregon, could picture his retirement just four years away. At the age of 58, Gary and his wife Jeanine had paid off their cars, house, and raised four children all while dumping the maximum amount of money into Gary's 401K retirement plan. They had plans of buying a motorhome and maybe a condo in Arizona to get away from the cold weather of Oregon. He opted to take that part of his salary in stock options. Things were looking good, Gary could of never known that the company he worked for, Enron, was about to fall apart. Enron, the seventh largest corporation in the nation, who's stock once traded at $90 a share plummeted to 26 cents. Gary lost approximately $200,000. Gary was one of the luck ones to receive a portion back. Many of Enron's employees were left with next to nothing (Franklin par. 1-3). With tighted government regulation, this sort of corruption can be stopped.
"Being ?within the law' doesn't cut it in this ever-more-complicated world," commented Barbra Ettore, journalist for Management Review magazine (par. 3). White-collar crime is an offence that everyone should be concerned with. People want to know that the businesses they purchase from and invest in are honest and obey the laws that are set for them. Jeffery M. Kaplan, an attorney with the New York based law firm, Arkin Schaffer & Supino, summed up the dilemma that the nation is facing, "?both the costs of crime and the costs of punishment are?including the impact of shareholders, consumers, and employees?have become too high for society to hear" (qtd. in Ettore par. 4). It would be nice to say that the crimes of today are isolated not representative of business in the past, but such a statement would not be ...