I wrote this while we were in the midst of all the accounting scandals and had hoped to sell it to The New Yorker to run as a 'Shouts and Murmers' column. That didn't happen -- the bastards. So here it is. Someone send it to Art Buchwald with my blessings.

A typical day in Hollywood. I was watching my portfolio shrivel while brainstorming script ideas. I thought, Honey I Shrunk The Retirement Account? No, too dark for a family film. Maybe a satire? Being only a minor satirist myself, I decided to call the Grand Master of the genre. "Art Buchwald please." They put me on hold. I wanted Mr. Buchwald’s thoughts on the rash of accounting scandals plaguing Wall Street. Maybe it would lead to an idea. He came on the line. "Art," I said, "I’ve been thinking."

"Who is this?"

Art’s always been a big kidder. Probably why he got into the satire racket in the first place. "This string of revelations about corporate malfeasance seem like good fodder for a script or a novel, don’t you think?"

"What’re you talking about?"

"I’m talking about Enron, WorldCom, all the others. The ‘infectious greed’ Greenspan spoke about. Cooking the books, all that."

"You call that malfeasance? That’s bush league."

"WorldCom was the largest bankruptcy in history, Art. You call that bush league?"

"Buncha punks running a Micky Mouse scam," Buchwald said.

"Improperly accounting for $3.9 billion in operating expenses?"

"Pish."

"What about Enron and those off-the-balance-sheet partnerships? Hiding all that debt? Defrauding investors. Experts call it the most egregious example of creative accounting they’ve ever seen."

"You call that creative accounting? That’s nothing. Congress oughta take a peek at Paramount’s books." Art’s voice took on a certain bitter edginess. "Fastow, Lay, and Ebbers are just a bunch of pikers compared to the studio chiefs."

He sounded like someone who knew whereof he spoke, even in that funny voice of his, which I’ve always loved.

"Take me for example," Buchwald said. "The studio stole my movie idea. I proved that in court. The movie earned $350 million. So we argued they owed me for the net profit participation clause in my contract."

"What happened?"

"The studio said they didn’t owe me anything because the movie earned no net profit." He paused. "You do know what net profit is, don’t you, kid?"

"Isn’t it revenues less expenses? Isn’t that recognized under GAAP?"

"Nope. There’s something called the Financial Accounting Standards Bulletin 53, a special set of rules for accounting in the film industry. FASB 53 makes it mathematically impossible for net profits ever to be achieved."

"Wow."

"Wow is right. You wanna see some accounting fraud? Take a look at a studio’s definition of net profit. Talk about your restatement of earnings."

"So the studios are engaged in the same sort of shenanigans as Enron and WorldCom?"

"No, there’s a big difference. WorldCom, Enron, and the others tried to make it appear there were profits that didn’t exist, while the studios try to make a profitable business look like a money loser. Those chumps at Arthur Anderson could learn a thing or two from Hollywood."

"Thanks for your time, Art. I’m going to go work on my script idea."

"You want my advice? Set up a production company and incorporate in Nassau."