1. Option backdating. You've heard about backdating options for execs who had the misfortune to pass away before exercising their plump option package... we'll show you how to pull the same trick for your as-yet unborn children. That way, your little tyke can exercise the options well before kindergarten.

2. The "non-recurring expenses" scam. We all know you're under pressure to keep profits rising at 15% year-over-year. Now that you've axed headcount, shipped manufacturing, tech support and the entire back office to India and China, what's left to slash? Nothing? Learn how to use financial legerdemain scams like "non-recurring expenses" to pimp your balance sheets and 10-Qs. It's all legal, of course. Is it ethical? Don't make me laugh with your naive whining, bucko. Get with the program. That candy-ass crap about ethics is for press conferences and annual statement propaganda.

3. What went wrong at H-P. What went wrong at H-P? They got caught! Learn how to spy and bait your employees without the ham-handed mistakes made by the jokers at H-P.

4. Propaganda 101. Some people worship Machiavelli. he's OK but I prefer "1984" as the text to really study. Learn how to flip reality 180% in your marketing campaign. You know--oil companies care about conservation, Wal-Mart gives back to the community--this is the stuff of genius. Learn how to pony up a meager $5 million in self-serving high-profile donations and then make that the centerpiece of a $50 million cross-media "feel good about how much we care about you" campaign. They fall for it every time.

5. Goose your stock price before you exercise your options. We'll show you how the pros do it. Remember how Intel just announced a 10,000-employee lay-off? Ever ask yourself why they just didn't just do it real quiet-like? Or if anyone ever checks to see if they did in fact lower headcount by 10,000? Of course nobody checks, and of course they ballyhooed the "news" in a huge media campaign. How else can you juice your stock price overnight? Claim you're firing an entire army of employees. Wall Street loves to see mass lay-offs. Never mind if you actually follow through--it's all about cashing out your executive package before you exit stage-right.

6. All news is good news. Learn how to turn every development into stock-goosing good news--like the pros on CNBC do all the time. Offshoring? That creates jobs. Sales down? It means our re-structuring is working. Learn the mantra of the stock market cheerleaders: "There is no bad news." Spin is the new black. You can never gone wrong with it.

I feel you are correct when you say that the shareholders are speculators not investors. The ultimate example of which are the day traders - absolute speculation tantamount to gambling. So at what point does speculation become investment? I would say it is highly correlated to the length of time the shares are held.

Realistically the management of companies have little choice. The short term share price is the measurement metric and because options are part of the payment package there is a strong personal motivation to enhance the short term position.

So how to fix it so that companies look to the longer term? Checks and balances, something that naturally opposes the shareholder tendency towards short term profit are required. I would suggest that one way of doing this would be to implement a simple law which requires the minimum period for executive stock options to be 10 years. In other words the managers can collect options every year but cannot cash them for 10 years from the date of issue. That way the executive, who may have long since parachuted to another job, still gets paid by performance but has a real incentive to make sure that everything he does today will ensure the company stock price is higher 10 years from now.

Maybe it can even be an ISO certification. Imagine companies proudly proclaiming that they are ISO 101 Certified for Long Term Growth.