Too many pundits have described the guilty verdicts of Lay and Skilling as closing the door on this sordid affair, as well as the imbroglios caused by the many other recent accounting scandals. Their hope rests with society's having cleaned up these messes. Unfortunately, human folly will dash these hopes in another few years. Accounting scandals have afflicted us in the past and have every reason to come calling in the future.

The 1920s and the 1930s saw interesting cases such as Ivar Kruegar the Match King, Richard Whitney, Interstate Hosiery, McCaffrey, Fred Stern & Co, and McKesson-Robbins. Kenneth MacNeal's Truth in Accounting, written in 1939, remains a fascinating read today because he so eloquently describes the shabby accounting practices of his time.

Not much happened during the War years, but managers got back on track with accounting scandals afterwards. The 1960s generated such gems as the Great Salad Oil scandal as well as fiascos at BarChris, Continental Vending, National Student Marketing, Occidental, Penn Central, and Telex. The 1970s witnessed no decline, as accounting issues surfaced at Equity Funding, Jiffy Lube, Leasco, Lockheed, LTV, Stirling Homex, and Westec. More accounting trickery transpired during the 1980s, at such corporations as Crazy Eddie's, MDC Holdings, Kaypro, Savin, and ZZZZ Best. The 1980s also saw the implosion of the savings and loan crisis, as virtually every manager in that industry cooked the books; the archetype was Lincoln Savings & Loan under the tutelage of Charles Keating. The more recent 1990s fabricated lots of accounting wizardry, including AOL, Arizona Baptist Foundation, Boston Chicken, Cendant, Duke Energy, Livenet, MicroStrategy, Phar Mor, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, and W. R. Grace.

While this listing includes the more famous cases, it contains only a small fraction of all accounting frauds. Many corporate bosses created many accounting shenanigans. If history is any guide, we likely will see more cases in the future.

For what, after all, have we done to improve things? Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, but so what? It codified a number of rules and proposals already in the works, such as requiring independent members of the audit committee. It increased fines and imposed longer prison sentences, but this does nothing if the Securities and Exchange Commission or others do not or cannot enforce the laws. Having the CEO and the CFO certify to the accuracy of the financial statements is a yawner, for any CEO or CFO who is willing to lie in the financial reports should have no difficulty in certifying to the accuracy of these reports, relying on the fragility of accounting, the underauditing by the Big Four, and lack of real enforcement by the SEC.

The essential problem is the human heart and its insatiable greed. If our rules or our institutions could deal with this issue, then society could celebrate the end of accounting scandals, as well as other callous behaviors. As it is, the investing public better remain vigilant for a long time to come. Its pocketbook depends on it.