Stolen Corporate Memos

You might be surprised to find out that e-mail has other uses besides forwarding links for YouTube videos. As a matter of fact, important business people utilize it every day for activities like committing corporate fraud. We set our crack CRACKED team of electronic investigators on the e-trail to uncover some of the most embarrassing ones from the most respected companies in the world.

To: Accounting
From: David J. Lesar, CEO, Halliburton Energy Services
Subject: Profits

It has come to my attention that profits are not as high as they used to be. A few years ago, we were making more money. Now, not as much. I resent this.

At MBA school, I learned that it is good when more money comes in than goes out, and bad when the opposite happens. We want the first and not the second (please see chart).

Therefore, I am instituting a new corporate policy. From now on, add a zero to the end of all revenue figures, and remove the first digit from all expenditures. This should work long enough to allow us to make the last payments on our palace in that little country with the 11-year-old hookers and no extradition treaty with the U.S.

To: Donald Trump, CEO, The Trump Organization
From: Human Resources
Subject: The Glass Ceiling

Mr. Trump, for the last time, "The Glass Ceiling" is a metaphor for our company's systematic discrimination against the upward progress of women. We do not have, nor plan to build, an actual ceiling made of glass. In addition to posing a slew of architectural problems, it would require relocating all women to a separate floor.

Besides, if the women were on a different floor, it would take longer to be brought coffee. And beyond of our constant watch, they might stage group readings of The Vagina Monologues and converge all their menstrual cycles.

We are, however, looking into the construction of a glass floor and mandatory skirt policy for dames.

To: Board of Directors
From: Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO, General Electric
Subject: The "Environment"

Gentlemen: Despite the fact that we save millions each year by storing improperly mixed lead paint in the Ohio River as opposed to disposal through expensive containers, those tree-hugging milksops at the EPA have decided to sue us, claiming that "rivers are not supposed to be flammable" and a bunch of other pseudo-scientific hogwash.

In technical terms, the "toxins" we "dump" in the river have been causing "cancer" in the inhabitants of the narrow patch of land stretching from Pennsylvania to Alabama. I called my friends on the state supreme court, and, legally speaking, tap water is not "drink at your own risk." Apparently, it's our fault if you're so lazy and stupid that you can't afford Perrier.

Luckily, we can afford some really top-notch lawyers, thanks in part to the two percent Corporate Benevolence Legal Defense Tax we levied on all wage-earning employees. The lawyers tell me not to worry. We didn't dump any poison in any rivers, it was those blue-collars in the factories. They should pay to have it cleaned up. Sounds fair to me.

To: Human Resources
From: Rupert Murdoch, Chairman, News Corporation
Subject: Layoffs

The figures are in. If we let go of 30,000 employees, our stock price should rise four cents. That probably won't do much for the unsavory peons losing their jobs, but I'm sure they understand that the top executives, whose portfolios are heavily concentrated in company stock, must act in the best interest of the shareholders.

Nonetheless, this might come across as the "rich" getting "richer" at the expense of the "working class." I know, I know. This whole "class conflict in America" business is just a fabrication of the liberal media. Nevertheless, we still need to tell our news stations to make up a reason why half of Cincinnati is now unemployed. Maybe they all got cancer.