Ask any studio executive how much his movie cost, and he will massage his brow and low-ball the figure, to make his movie seem more profitable.
Mr. Gile told Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV that he and Mr. Becker, his former boss, made changes to make their department seem more profitable than it was.
The more significant fraud, according to prosecutors, was that Mr. Brooks ordered employees to lie repeatedly about the company's financial performance, including overstating the inventory of bullet-resistant vests, to make the company seem more profitable than it was.
"Counterfeit and unsafe cigarettes may seem more profitable, but, when caught, traders pay a heavy price," said trading standards officer Peter Stonely after Wednesday's hearing.
Owners, meanwhile, buy teams in cities they've never been to because it seems more fun and profitable than buying a yacht with a pool large enough to sail another yacht in.
But Achleitner seems more concerned with running a profitable company than with corporate elegance.
Rather than rehashing a tired debate about the boundary between art and cooking, it seems far more profitable to advocate for higher standards in artistic achievement, and to recognise that sensory pleasures need not be art to be worthwhile.
Later, the board's special investigators concluded that these partnerships, and others they spawned, had been twisted at Enron into a tool for making the company seem far more profitable that it really was.
And in an unusual market twist, the securities seem to be more profitable for investors than for Wall Street, which was lobbying for their demise not so long ago.
But for those more interested in the financial value of the biome, clear-cutting this magnificent ecosystem for farming, mining, and building infrastructure may seem like a more profitable endeavor than preservation.
