I can’t see the point of putting rich Martha Stewart in jail. I have a list of people that could go around the block who should go there first. I like to think of Martha ending up in jail as “lawyer failure.” So she acted on a tip and lied about it under oath. Yes, she should have humbly confessed. Juries are impressed by good acting. Martha is in jail for lying, not for acting on a tip. She should appeal on the grounds that she acted on the basis of bad legal advice from her lawyer. Martha’s worth millions and she’s in jail for trying to pick up some small change? C’mon. Free Martha Stewart. Women of the world unite.

There used to be a proud little brass logo on the desks of many CEOs. It read: “The buck stops here.” Now, it appears the buck doesn’t stop there – it ends up in the shareholders’ laps. They are taking the fall for dishonesty, incompetence in senior management, poor accounting experiences and, sad to say, for being duped.

There are many really big crooks out there and big shots asleep at the wheel. There’s the Canadian banks that used to be the proud paragons of virtue. They almost invented staidness. Now they have admitted squandering millions of their shareholders’ dollars on dubious enterprises like Enron Corporation. They used to tell complaining shareholders at annual meetings, “If you don’t like the way I run the business, sell your stock.”

The Toronto-Dominion Bank is implicated in Enron’s turgid dealings as revealed in the bankruptcy courts. Neal Batson, a court-appointed auditor, says there is enough evidence to conclude that TD participated in a series of complex transactions with Enron, knowing they were designed to hide debt and inflate cash flows, thus deceiving analysts, investors and credit rating agencies. After making enormous profits for 20 years, TD was left with a $57.8 million (US) debt owed by Enron. TD was deemed “guilty of not turning in Enron.” Sad. Nobody at TD had a whistle.

The CIBC paid $80-million (US) as part of a settlement over Enron last year, and avoided criminal prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice “by entering a three-year agreement to retreat from certain business practices and implement new policies and procedures surrounding the integrity of your financial statements and transactions.” (It sure beats going to jail.) Tom Hunkin, the CEO, set aside another $50 million (US) to cover another possible settlement for “potential illegal market activity.” Hunkin offered an abject apology to the shareholders, but didn’t quit after gutting shareholders’ equity of a potential $130 million (US). That’s where the buck stopped. The board didn’t censure him. The CIBC made $609 million, up from $445 million last year. With those figures, all was forgiven.

Maybe they were grateful that they weren’t on the board of Tycos International, where former CEO Dennis Kozlowski is on trial for allegedly looting hundreds of millions of dollars.

Canada is always afraid to throw crooks in jail. It’s felt they might fall in with bad companions. A Hamilton laboratory was fined $5 million for faking reports on water, soil and pharmaceutical test results. The firm, Fine Analysis Laboratories Ltd., performed drinking water analysis for 35 local communities. Mr. Justice Anton Zuraw called the company’s actions a “stunningly blatant scheme” that was motivated solely by greed. A yawner of a sentence and no jail time. (Only in Canada, you say.)

But cast your eyes at Parmalat, the insolvent food and global giant, where the founder, 66-year-old Calisto Tanzi, in December of last year, was arrested, jailed and questioned over false accounting allegations and a missing $14 billion. (That’s not peanuts.)

Chicago-based Grant Thornton LLP, which has audited Parmalat’s books since 1990, started an internal probe into how it failed to spot that $14 billion was missing. (Wake up! Someone’s made off with pages three to five!) They denied any wrongdoing and say that they were victims of a fraud. (Remember, CA students, when in deep trouble, blame somebody else.)