CEOs Rip Off Their Companies and the Public Via Fraud and Walk Away With Their Pockets Bulging

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http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/how-highly-paid-ceos-rip-their-companies-and-public-fraud-and



After exposing CEO scoundrels for 20 years, it’s hard to keep them all straight. The guy who cooked the books to buy a golden shower curtain blends together with the one who used ill-gotten Iraq war windfalls to pay for his wife’s racehorses and plastic surgery and the one who cashed in on subprime mortgages and sailed off on a yacht before the bubble burst.

But then you stumble into a story that makes you realize you can still get riled up. At first you tell yourself it’s not breaking news and nobody will care so just forget about it. But then you find yourself fuming about it to your husband over breakfast. And then you’re grousing about it over drinks with your friends. And then you decide you have to write about it.

For me, this is the Charles Heimbold Jr. story.

Now some may say this story stuck in my craw because Heimbold obtained a position I covet: U.S. ambassador to Sweden. Serving my country and my grandfather’s beautiful homeland while grazing on magnificent smorgasbords—that’s a gig I’d love.