Well well well, despite the much vaunted ability to withstand the assaults of a multitude of perverse minded geeks and hackers it looks like one of the worlds most vaunted fruits may have finally succumbed to a 21st century scourge. Strange timing as around these parts of the pacific northwest our orchards are only just through with blossoming and as the blossoms give way to leaves and fruit set the quality of the end results are as yet unknown and far away. Not so with a crop from the last few years, even in storage and disbursment the results have been juicy and the purchasers duly sated. However as we dig deeper into that barrel it becomes obvious that the apple has indeed been infected by worm (s). Tough at first …to identify this bad bug… and apply an insecticide of the correct efficacy, as it seems to have come from within the fruit itself.
The worm has a big time name… Steve Jobs, if former CFO Fred Anderson’s revelations are indeed held to be true. Apparently the already super wealthy and super arrogant can’t keep themselves from boring further into a fruit’s juicy accounting to further enrich themselves, possibly at the expense of those who would then make financial judgments from books that would be considered “cooked”. Apparently one bite of the apple is never enough for some. The backdating of stock options has been a very popular ploy for attaining ultra wealth of late by allowing egos to ride roughshod and unchecked over the checks and balance staffers.
Already some eighty executives have felt the sting of prosecution and job loss. Popular opinion seems to hold that Jobs will suffer no such job loss due to his overwhelming popularity, not to mention his core defense in saying he didn’t “appreciate the accounting implications” from his ordering the CFO to pick “favorable dates” for option awards….all after the fact. Post harvest so to speak! This is compounded by misleading people into thinking that Apple’s Board had given its prior approval for such malfeasance. This from supposedly one of the brightest guys on the planet? Looks like bright might be getting mixed up with “sharp” in this case and again it must be Koolaid time for the rest of us!! It seems we are talking about a fresh squeeze of an additional $20M in this one instance alone.
Unfortunately for honesty and transparency in this case the SEC office in San Fransisco seems unable to get itself organised. What with falling all over itself in being impressed by “extraordinary cooperation” and a whole melange of its own staff quitting, being dismissed or going on leave it looks like our collective worshiping of braggadocio and success might excuse this ripe rip off.
Who gives a damn? Certainely not investors and the stock market just now! So howdya like them iapples?