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Profits without honour

The bullish 1990's market lead companies like Enron and WorldCom to strive for unrealistic earnings growth - eventually by any means necessary. Their stories show that shareholder value should be an end, and not the aim of good businesses.
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A true and fair view of productivity

Politicians, business people and financial commentators talk about economic growth as if they were discussing objective data, like population growth, or temperature. But national income accounting is every bit as much a subjective enterprise as the private sector accounting on which it ultimately depends.
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Insiders calls the tune

Treating the value of share options as a cost makes a dramatic difference to the reported profits of many technology companies. And it points to a broader issue. In the knowledge economy, the distinction between employee remuneration and shareholder return is fundamentally changed
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Stretching the figures

“Do the math” has become the mantra of a generation of consultants and investment bankers. The new economy, they claim, requires new principles of valuation. But the rules of logic hold even in cyberspace, and so do the principles of economics. Profits are hard to earn in competitive businesses, and markets that are not competitive are usually regulated.
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