He was instantly struck by the opacity of an investment bank’s books. None of his fellow accountants was able to explain why the traders were doing what they were doing. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” said Vinny. “But the scary thing was, my managers didn’t know anything either. I asked these basic questions—like, Why do they own this mortgage bond? Are they just betting on it, or is it part of some larger strategy? I thought I needed to know. It’s really difficult to audit a company if you can’t connect the dots.” He concluded that there was effectively no way for an accountant assigned to
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