Looking for the degeneration of business and accounting conduct that led to the Enron scandal in the climate of the 1990s-early 2000 might be too late. As early as 1980, according to Zeff (2003), there had been a visible deterioration of professional values in accounting, at least. He attributed this to the effects of astonishing growth in the profession and competitive pressures beginning to be felt in a formerly stodgy business arena. He noted that it had "created in some CPAs attitudes that are intensely commercial and nearly devoid of the high-principled conduct that we have come to expect of a true professional" (Zeff 2003, p. 267ff). He might have been writing those words in 2005, because despite Enron and WorldCom and Martha Stewart, the dot-com bust, the IPO whirlwind and the market crash of 2000, it is difficult to see any evidence that the "preoccupation with the bottom line" has returned to the civility, respect, courtesy, mutual respect and fairness Zeff proposes existed before 1980.

             This is not simply convenient opinion expressed in the aftermath of an accounting disaster with major financial and sociological impact. In fact, by 1985, "FASB Vice Chairman Robert T. Sprouse wrote that the quality of letters of comment from the Big Eight (accounting) firms had, in recent years, deteriorated in terms of their 'comprehensiveness, thoughtfulness, and clarity of the constructive recommendations they contained" (quoted by Zeff 2003, p. 267ff).

             Zeff contended that the cause for this dilution of stringency might have been a reluctance by the major firms (and Enron"s Arthur Anderson was certainly one) to express accounting opinions that might be offensive to their clients. A year earlier, Donald J. Kirk FASB chairman and former audit partner of Price Waterhouse had been concerned that the industry was already on a path toward producing financial statements that were not credible, and that the industry could no longer ensure that "the additional services offered by accounting firms don"t detract from the firms" major responsibility of auditing financial statements or impinge on their independence.