Arthur Andersen exonerated...everybody gets their job back?

The news is out: Andersen Consulting has been exonerated by the courts. I yawn because this announcement is akin to the apology that appears on page 300 of the local rag after it is discovered that a mistake was made in a huge front page story days before.

As you may recall (unless you've been in a coma for several years), Andersen was charged with obstructing a federal investigation--or some similar language--because it destroyed records the government could have used in the case it was building against Kenneth Lay over the Enron debacle. So while Kenny was living off the interest from investing the funds of his employees' retirement and investment funds, waiting for the Justice Department to find its legal pads, the Andersen firm was being scuttled. A shame, really, for a well-known and respected international firm. Luckily, according to this article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, some of the former Andersen employees were finding that their connection with the firm was not viewed as a negative by their future employers. See http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05152/513591.stm for the whole story.

However, I suspect that there are more than a few Andersen alumni who believe the Supreme Court decision was too little too late, as in the New York Times story, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/01/business/01audit.html. Can't say I'd blame them. The reversal is from a three-year-old conviction, and no doubt bittersweet news for most of the employees affected. So does this mean that Ken Lay et al will will take all the responsibility?

My good friend NS used to work for Andersen, and while she tired of the international jet setting of the job she had and decided to work for peanuts in the public sector, she maintained many friends and contacts at Andersen, so she was privy to a lot of the happenings and feelings that were sweeping the company.

Today's news reported that 28,000 people lost their jobs at Andersen. NS insists that is a gross misnomer, insisting that the 28,000 may have been just the domestic side of the job destruction. Not that 28,000 jobs isn't a staggering figure, but when you take into account the international employees as well as the folks beyond employees who also lost their jobs, the numbers become numbing. The actual number of people that lost their jobs is 82,000 or more -- 54,000 outside the U.S. Because of a Justice Department mistake. Oops. Sorry.

Where are these people now? I certainly hope they haven't banded together to form their own country of mercenaries. If they have, we are screwed.