Vampire Squid, Broken Down

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

For you viewing pleasure, FT Alphaville has provided some illustrations so that we might better conceptualize Matt Taibbi’s labeling of Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”, which still makes us wince.
All we’ll say is that includes Darth Vader so that makes it worth a look.
Vampire squid, illustrated edition [FT Alphaville]

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Launch Your Career, Part Deux

human-cannonball.jpgWe took another look at BusinessWeek’s Top Places to Launch a Career list because: 1) lists out of business magazines, no matter how trite and meaningless, have a way of sucking us in and B) we figured there may be more information that you would find interesting.
As we mentioned last week, Deloitte knocked E&Y off the mountain by having the best stats in some key categories like salary, three-year retention rate, and lowest drop in entry level hiring.
Here are a few more stats we discovered in BW’s list:
• Only 2% of Deloitte’s new associates received a performance bonus, and the average bonus was $296. This compares to 35% for E&Y, 27% for P. Dubya, 68% for KPMG, and 85% for GT. The respective average bonus was $5,141; $4,900; $3,700; $1,552.
Continued, after the jump


• E&Y really loves their new associates so much that they spent, on average, $18,500 on training for each one. The next hightest was KPMG at $7,689. We double-checked the E&Y number, thanks.
• We mentioned the three year retention rates for the firms last week and Guest 3 noted how this is um, not good. Interestingly enough, the five year retention rate is worse, with all the firms hovering around 34%, except for GT whose five year retention rate was 28%
• PwC had the youngest partner at 30 years with eight years seniority while E&Y and GT both had partners with seniority of seven years with seven years. Deloitte’s youngest was 31 with ten years and KPMG’s was 32 with 9 years.
Unfortunately, the list does not contain happy hour to new hire or hottie to nottie ratios but we figure these fairly close too. So of you’re a recruit this probably leaves you just as confused as before.
Discuss the stats in the comments and try to guide our college friends in the right direction. Recruits, if you’ve got your mind made up, let us know which firm and why. You’re going to have to sell it though.

Obvious Sign of Fraud: You’re Having Sex with the Client

distraction.jpgIn case you young auditors thought you needed to have highly acute senses to detect fraud at your clients, you’re dead wrong.
Best thing you can do is immediately become skeptical if you find yourself trying to figure out the best posish for the client’s office supply room:
More, after the jump

“These auditors from the Big Four accounting firms are usually single kids just a few years out of school. What do kids in their 20s think about all the time? Sex,” said [Sam] Antar, who was at the center of a multi-million dollar fraud 20 years ago.
So Antar would pair “cute hot female” employees with male auditors as part of his distraction strategy. “In effect, I was a fraudster, matchmaker and pimp,” said Antar, who avoided jail time by working with the U.S. government, and now advises government agencies and businesses on avoiding accounting fraud.

As we’ve covered, the opportunities for accountants to get some action can be few and far between so this strategy makes perfect sense.
This will put many of you in a very difficult situation. We really wish the best for all you of in the getting laid department especially when it involves someone that would ordinarily be way out of your league.
But you may have to decide: Do you uncover the next diabolical Ponzi scheme or do you totally cave to the irresistible charms of the guy that looks way too much like Chace Crawford?
Who would it take for you to overlook a few million in misappropriated funds? Discuss in the comments.
Financial fraud — accounting for criminals [CNN]