Who would have thought we'd long for the good old days of U.S. West, that telephone monopoly with lousy service and complacent management? Remarkably, Qwest, U.S. West's successor, makes even that ponderous old dinosaur look good.

It wasn't too long ago that Qwest's braggart CEO, Joe Nacchio, was trumpeting the phenomenal successes of his high-flying company, touting its stupendous growth from merely a few million to a multi-billion dollar market value in only a couple of years. Well, today, that same CEO is presiding over a company with a bottom-dwelling stock price, an SEC investigation of its accounting practices and stockholder lawsuits.

While its fortunes were collapsing and its stock price was tumbling, Qwest executives were happily cashing out their Qwest shares. When the stock was selling for $38 per share, CEO Nacchio made nearly $75 million on his stock sales. Meanwhile, executives were encouraging Qwest employees to hold their shares in the company. To its credit, earlier this week, Qwest did free its employees to sell shares in their retirement accounts. Only problem is, today the stock is trading around $7 per share.

Qwest's inglorious fall is just another example of the failed hype many corporations used over the last few years to inflate their stock prices and enrich their executives. As part of their arsenal to pump up earnings, many companies (including Qwest) use "pro forma" reporting, a way to choose what they count as revenue and what they expense.

Pro forma reporting leaves out such potentially huge costs as interest payments, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Imagine how much more money you could spend on your family if you didn't have to pay your taxes or mortgage interest! But, you'd surely be fooling yourself because those costs do, in fact, have to be paid. In this case, it's the investors who were often fooled.

Qwest's behavior raises important issues that underlie the debate raging in the wake of Enron's demise. For one, it calls into question not only a corporation's accounting methods, but also its accounting firm. America's capitalist system, with its wide-open capital markets, relies on truth in reporting to function efficiently. America's investors must know that the information on which they base their investing decisions is timely and accurate. Good faith and honesty drive our system.

We are questioning that honesty and accuracy today. Companies are restating earnings, as Qwest may well have to do, to more correctly reflect their financial positions. By the time that happens, however, investors have lost huge amounts of money. Congress can't and shouldn't regulate every detail of corporate behavior. But, that means corporations have a clear responsibility to be fair, accurate and honest in all they do. And, their accountants must do the same. Above all, corporations must look out for the long-term welfare of the company, including their employees, customers and shareholders

Next, Wall Street must look at itself. It isn't "the market" that puts intense profit pressure on corporate executives. It is the analysts and bankers who write about and finance companies. The time is long past when a corporation's quarterly results, rather than its long-term stability and earnings potential, should drive its stock value.

It's also past time to end the comfy relationship between Wall Street's analysts and bankers. Who can trust an analyst whose reports on a company may determine whether or not her banker colleagues win that company's business, with its accompanying profits and bonuses?

Finally, where is accountability we deserve? When CEO's earn huge salaries, bonuses and stock option packages while their companies are tanking, there's something terribly amiss. Boards of directors must hold their executives, and stockholders must hold the company's directors, accountable for the performance of their corporations. When these groups fail to do their jobs, regulators and, ultimately, the courts must step in with vigorous enforcement.

In the end, it all comes back to ethics. We should expect unequivocally ethical behavior on the part of corporate management, without having to resort to regulators or courts. Our system will only thrive if integrity rather than greed is the rule.