Sure looks like it, Gil!

When your Enrons/lobal Crossings/Tycos/etc had Accountants who refused to fudge, they hired ones who would.
When the BIG accounting firms saw that Arthur Andersen was making millions at Enron it became 'their duty to their shareholders' to do similar "work" top reap similar gains.
When highly respected Funds Managers found they could get way with after-hours trading even though it was expressly forbidden they grew it until it became standard practise.

And it goes on and on. And the medical profession in the U.S. (by no means all, but enough to give them all a bad name) and the drug companies and insurance companies there too are PRIME examples of greed run amok.
When Communism was vanquished, capitalism ran wild and it looks like it will be our undoing faster than anyone thought.


>George Soros, one of the wealthiest people in thw world, once told members of the US Congress, in a speech that was invited to give, that the german economist/historian Hegel said that the fall of every great civilization we due to its overindulgence of their first principles. One of the first principles of the US is the freedom to compete in a free market. I think that we are at the stage where that first principle has completely disintegrated into what I can succinctly describe as being 'impelled by pure, unmitigated greed.
>
>>Heard this over the weekend...
>>
>>Seems that "recruiters" go around finding people WITH health insurance and works on them to convince them to undergo an operation they really do not need. Once they have a person they then school them on how to reply to any questions the doctor asks.
>>The doctor then sees the patient, confirms that an operation is sensible, and performs the operation.
>>
>>The recruiter gets a cut from the doctor and the "patient" gets his cut from the recruiter. The doctor gets paid a handsome amount from the insurance company, from which he pays the recruiter and makes a nice profit for himself. Apparently, the recruiter get between $1,000-$2,000 and the "patient" gets between $500-$1500 (plus a fixed non-problem, of course).
>>
>>It continues to amaze me as to just how far people will go to make a buck. This one has got to be pretty LOW, morally, considering the types of people involved!