Wheel, Deal, and Steal: Deceptive Accounting, Deceitful CEOs, and Ineffective Reforms - Hardcover

Mills, Daniel Quinn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0131408046 ISBN 13: 9780131408043

Publisher: Ft Pr, 2003

Synopsis

Global financial scandals didn't stop with Enron, WorldCom, or Tyco. In fact, they're still notover. In Wheel, Deal, and Steal, Harvard Business School professor Daniel Quinn Mills showsinvestors how imperial CEOs continue to steal from their investors - and how the rules intendedto protect investors continue to fail. Mills outlines comprehensive reforms to clean up the systemand keep it clean. Best of all, he shows small investors how to protect what's left - and maybeeven recover their losses.

About this title

From the Back Cover

When it comes to the global financial scandals, it wasn't just Enron, or WorldCom, or Global Crossing, or Tyco... and it's not over. Just under the surface, financial scandal continues to bubble at many of the world's most respected "blue chip" companies—and reforms have barely scratched the surface.

In Wheel, Deal, and Steal, Harvard Business School professor Daniel Quinn Mills shows investors exactly how the financial frauds work, where the money goes, who's to blame, and what they can do about it. He explains how imperial CEOs continue to mislead and steal from their investors—and how the rules intended to protect investors continue to fail.

Mills outlines comprehensive reforms that can clean up the system and keep it clean, by finally eliminating the incentives that still promote massive corruption. Best of all, he shows small investors how to protect their remaining assets—and, in some cases, even recover their losses.

• The imperial CEO: still the heart of the problem
How power-mad, greedy CEOs continue to loot their companies

• Why "reforms" aren't working—and how to really fix the system
Real protections that leverage the power of the marketplace

• Freezing and seizing: a direct route to the CEO's pocketbook
How to protect your investments—and (just maybe) recover your losses

• Beyond "the ethics of the gutter"
What it will take to return integrity to corporate America

• Going forward: what investors should do now
Making intelligent decisions about market risk in the coming years

Financial scandals: It's not just Enron and Worldcom... and it's not over!

"This book should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the serious structural flaws that were embedded in our financial system during the 1990s. This book is a must read."

— Eliot Spitzer, New York State Attorney General

"I love to read Quinn's work! It is fun, readable and useful. He presents a detailed analysis that is far different than the 'sound bites' we hear in the news. Even the parts that I disagree with make me think."

—Marshall Goldsmith, Founding Director of the Alliance for Strategic Leadership and executive educator and coach

"Quinn Mills takes a provocative look at the systematic problems that led to the current crisis and loss in investor confidence. Every sector of the investing world gets examined under Mills' microscope, and is challenged to restore its institutional values by Mills' far-reaching proposals."

—Bill George, former Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Inc., and boardmember for Goldman Sachs, Novartis, and Target

"Put all together, as this book does, the business financial scandals are a truly shocking story of a systematic problem in our financial markets. But in getting to a solution it is crucial to avoid throwing the baby (which is our effective economic system) out with the bath water (which is the misuse of the system). Mills does a marvelous job of walking this fine line. This book is a very good combination of the anecdotal and the systematic and deserves to be widely read."

—Kim Davis, Managing Director and Co-founder, Charlesbank Capital Partners, LLC

"This is a very important and timely book. Everyone interested in leadership and the interplay of financial and real markets should read it. It's about how American society has been losing its commitment to the absolute primacy of ethics and sound values in our institutions and the impact of this fatal erosion on some of our business firms and their leaders."

—John H. McArthur, Dean Emeritus, Harvard Business School; Senior Advisor to the President of the World Bank; Director of HCA Healthcare Corporation, and former Director, Chase Manhattan Corporation

"This book is one of the most profound and refreshingly candid examinations of the American CEO's accountability and influence I have seen."

—Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Associate Dean, Yale School of Management and President of Yale's CEO Executive Leadership Institute

"Quinn Mills, by courageously exposing the extent of the current wave of fraudulent business practices, has shown the pressing need for the business community itself to take the lead in securing appropriate regulations."

—Paul R. Lawrence, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and former chairman of the MBA and Advanced Management programs

About the Author

Daniel Quinn Mills is Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where heteaches general management, including leadership, strategy, organizations, and investments.His books include a companion book to this one, Buy, Lie and Sell High: How Investors Lost Out OnEnron and the Internet Bubble. These two books together form a complete account of the 1990s bullmarket in stocks. He is also author of eLEADERSHIP: Winning in 21st Century Business and BrokenPromises: An Unconventional View of What Went Wrong at IBM, which helped define strategies laterused to turn IBM around.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ft Pr
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0131408046
• ISBN 13: 9780131408043
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300