Business Fairy Tales Book

On the heels of the Enron trial, there are lessons to be learned from the barrage of fraud hammering corporate America-including how to spot signs of future scams. In a gripping read, BUSINESS FAIRY TALES uses real-world scandals to illustrate the top-twenty methods used by companies to falsely overstate earnings and hide debt. It explains each accounting trick with the story of a company and the officials responsible for the fictitious financial reporting. It goes behind the scenes to describe the deception and examine the character failures of the leaders. The book also presents a compelling argument for the kind of reform needed, as well as the ethics that must support true reform. Ultimately, it equips and empowers readers with the skills to spot signs of potential accounting fraud. The book provides specific, tell-tale signals of the top twenty financial-reporting schemes-signals that are inevitably left behind in false financial statements. "Jackson walks the reader through the various ways unsuspecting investors can be led down the garden path through accounting tricks. Jackson has a knack for bringing complicated financial concepts like goodwill down to earth, and for demonstrating how they can be used to inflate earnings." Barron's Magazine, Sep. 25, 2006. "The 'fairy tales' of the title are the companies' financial reporting, which is described in what reads like a series of horror stories. The Grimm-style moral is obvious, but author Cecil W. Jackson goes further, equipping the reader with the skills to spot the 20 most common forms of corporate impropriety, and hopefully avoid this kind of nightmare in the future." Accounting Today, Oct. 2, 2006. "There are many more lessons in this book. They are based on real cases, and the author does an excellent job in providing ways to detect possible mischief. And, as a book that can help me avoid trouble with my investment picks, it's certainly a bargain." Tom Taulli, The Motley Fool, Oct. 31, 2006.Read More