While the shareholders and board of directors at at Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFMI) wish CEO John Mackey would pipe down, and the board at Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK), if it exists, seems indifferent to CEO Patrick Byrne's Regulation FD-flouting rants, Herb Greenberg has a nice WSJ column (subscription required) on executives who take a different approach. To borrow a line from Calvin Coolidge, these companies have decided that nothing they don't say will do them any harm.

The piece talks about a few thinly traded, closely held companies, several of which list their shares on the OTC markets, which tend to be highly illiquid and provide little exposure. These companies don't hold regular conference calls and don't present at investor conferences, but some have actually provided investors with very strong returns.

The highlight of the column is a company called Expeditors International (NASDAQ: EXPD), a transportation and logistics business. Expediters responds to shareholder inquires by filing 8-Ks with the SEC providing pithy, and often bitchy, responses to questions. The latest series is one of the strangest 8-Ks I have ever seen.

The always-insightful Herb Greenberg raises an interesting point in his latest Weekend Investor column for the Wall Street Journal: "Face it: Nobody cares much about accounting scandals anymore."

He uses the situation at International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF) as an example. After the company reported that it had fired its chief financial officer, the stock went up. The shares are currently trading at about the same price they were at before the company reported "accounting irregularities" on April 9.

Investors may have be correctly predicting that the accounting issues aren't huge -- any restatement of earnings may not be material enough to effect the value of the company.

But that's not really the point. As Greenberg writes, "Still, the market's indifference to possible fraud, no matter the size, is astounding -- especially since, at times, aggressive behavior reflects a company's culture."

Now that is precisely the point. I'm with Jim Cramer on this one: When a company's CEO or CFO resigns unexpectedly, sell the stock. If a company announces "accounting irregularities" and the stock doesn't tank on the news, take it as an opportunity to get out: Shooting first and asking questions later would have saved investors a lot of pain at companies like Enron, WorldCom, and, for you history buffs out there, Zzzz Best and Crazy Eddie.

The market appears to have developed an indifference to early warning signs of fraud, and that inefficiency could provide savvy investors with a chance to hop off the bus before it heads into a ditch.

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Accounting Research, journalists are a lot better, or at least faster, at spotting signs of accounting fraud and corporate shenanigans than the SEC. Harvard Professor Gregory Miller measured the frequency of reporters beating the SEC to the punch in uncovering fraud and found that in roughly one-third of the 263 cases of accounting fraud confirmed by the SEC between 1987 and 2002, members of the press alleged wrongdoing before the SEC or the company announced any investigation.

The Columbia Journalism Review sums up the findings nicely: "And while beating the SEC to an investigation is like beating Porky the Pig in a bicycle race up the Alps, we concede it's not nothing."

I e-mailed Marketwatch columnist Herb Greenberg (Full disclosure: He's one of my heroes.) about the findings, because he was the only journalist to have proactively uncovered a case of accounting fraud before the SEC more than once; he's done that five times.

Given the relative speed with which journalists uncover fraud, I asked him whether the SEC could learn anything from the methods employed by journalist-gumshoes. Greenberg dismissed that idea saying that "There's a difference between reporting a story and formally investigating and finding legal fault .... No, nothing they can learn."

He added that that much-maligned band of investors known as short-sellers are often sources for investigative reporters, calling them the "first line of defense for investors because they're putting their own money on the line." But he said that really good information usually comes from "former employees, analysts, and mutual fund managers who have SOLD stocks for reasons other than valuation."

Herb Greenberg's latest Weekend Investor column poses an interesting question: With all the hoopla about excessive compensation, options backdating, and bad corporate governance, does it really matter from the perspective of an investor? While it may be a good excuse for some old-fashioned righteous indignation, what effect does bad governance really have on performance? Here's a telling quote from the piece:

No surprise, then, that companies like Colgate-Palmolive, PepsiCo and Kimberly Clark, whose stocks have been solid performers, also have received the best possible grades year after year from Mr. Anderson's firm.

"Well governed companies face the same kind of market and competitor risks as everybody else," he says, "but the chance of an implosion caused by an ineffective board or management is way less." No argument here.

That's certainly true, and I would say that while scandals like options backdating and excessive compensation aren't reasons to sell a stock by themselves (Overpaying for a CEO by $5 million a year is a quantifiable destroyer of value, and it's reflected in decreased earnings), these indications of self-dealing and greed are often symptomatic of other problems. Executives either have integrity and respect for the people they serve or they don't.

My tendency is to avoid stocks where I feel like there are governance issues, or even just companies who don't behave in a way that I consider to be ethical. When it came out that Enron had profited by manipulating the California energy markets, a lot of cynical investors cheered -- After all, Enron was making them rich! But their rejoicing was short-lived as Enron was robbing Grandma Millie and its shareholders.

I think it's important to look at bad business practices not in terms of the finite cost of the problems observed, but as indications of likely future problems: If a board signs off on excessive compensation, it's probably not paying very good attention. There's a good chance that the company may lack effective internal controls.

In his book Maxed Out, James Scurlock discusses the "debt hell" that so many working Americans have found themselves in. The stories he profiles are often tragic, and tend to deal with people who earn little income. But he also takes a vist to a store called the "Yuppie Pawn Shop" where the "rich" can pawn things like Rolex watches and flat-screen TV's when they don't have enough money to pay their bills. Today, Herb Greenberg discusses the plight of the "seemingly well-off" who have overextended themselves financially.

Herb Greenberg's Weekend Investor column focuses on the need for investors to be more skeptical or, as he calls it, detective-like. By looking deeper into the numbers than just the earnings per share or revenue growth, you can sometimes uncover signs of trouble before most Wall Street analysts do. And with increased disclosures as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, there may be more red flags to be found than ever.

Unfortunately, I suspect very few investors have the skills to read a 10-K or 10-Q critically. Most of us just take everything at face value. But, learning a little bit of "forensic accounting" is a lot of fun (you really do feel like a detective) and may help you notice some danger signs. Here are my favorite books for digging deeper into financial statements and seeking out signs of fraud or misrepresentation:

Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports by Howard Schilit. Probably the best book on accounting fraud.

Quality of Earnings by Thorton O'Glove. I found this one dry and boring, but it's written by one of the first experts in the field, and contains some great examples.

The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn F. Staley. While not exclusively about accounting fraud, this contains some interesting stories of companies that were engaging in creative accounting. And, if you become an expert on creative accounting, short-selling may be a way to a profit from it.

In a film clip taped for Marketwach, Herb Greenberg, known for his scathing pieces on companies in trouble, added his voice to the world of reactions to Jim Cramer's interview on TheStreet.com in which he talked about manipulating stocks.

In his interview, Cramer described feeding negative information to the media about companies in which he had taken short positions. As a journalist who frequently speaks with short sellers, Herb Greenberg dismissed the scandal surrounding this, saying that it was no less legitimate than a bull talking about a stock to the media.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Herb Greenberg. His intelligent analysis penetrates far deeper than just about any other market commentator, and he seems to be right more often than he's wrong. Investors who listened to his warnings on Novastar could have saved a lot of money, or gotten rich on the short-side.

Watch Greenberg's piece on Marketwatch (by clicking the read link below), and, if you don't already, start reading the blog one of Wall Street's best journalists.

If Henry Blodget was trying redeem himself with his new book, he failed miserably. In fact, the book reinforces the idea that he is a slime-ball. But recently Herb Greenberg sat down with two ex-cons who have gone a long way toward redeeming themselves: former Zzzz Best Carpet conman Barry Minkow and former Crazy Eddie CFO Sam E. Antar. I have also spoken with these men and, in speaking with them, one thing becomes clear: These two are living proof that people really can change. When you look at the work they've done since they set off on the road to redemption, I would argue they have more than made up for the damage they've done.

They also offer valuable advice for investors. From Greenberg's piece, Mr. Antar says: "Watch how management handles bad quarters, earnings disappointments, criticism, skepticism and cynicism. Do they start by saying, 'We take full responsibility and make no excuses' -- only to follow by carefully worded innuendos, excuses and deflection? Do they question the integrity of those who ask questions?"

To learn more about these two amazing people, visit Barry Minkow's website and Sam E. Antar's site, a must for understanding white-collar crime.

A well-known writer once described criticizing literature as the equivalent of attacking a donut. Well, in his latest column from last week, MarketWatch columnist Herb Greenberg went after Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. (NYSE:KKD), and questioned its latest financial statements.

Granted, this is not the first time that Greenberg, one of Wall Street's most prominent bears, has gone after Krispy Kreme. In 2004, he named former CEO Scott Livengood the "Worst CEO of the Year," and cited him for "the destruction of more shareholder value than almost any other CEO this year -- and it was result of greed, questionable dealings with insiders and falling into the trap of believing his own press clippings rather than paying attention to the details of the business."

In his latest column, Greenberg is on Krispy Kreme again, this time for improving cash flow, mainly by reducing the allowance for doubtful accounts by $10 million. He also raises questions about the stock's valuation, claiming that while KKD trades at around 1.74-times sales, its profitable franchises "last year sold to private equity for about half sales."

Granted, while Herb Greenberg has been wrong before (bearish on Hansen Natural for a year), he's right more often than not, and his logic looks compelling here. Numerous questions still surround Krispy Kreme and, with a market cap of $800 million, investors appear a little too optimistic. As for me, I will avoid the shares for now.

When I went to college, I ventured far from my safe liberal hippie Portland, Ore. home -- all the way to a little town in Virginia. Robert E. Lee's horse was buried a few feet from my freshman dorm room, if that's any description. And that's when I was introduced to Krispy Kreme.

My immediate reaction? Eww! "Krispy Kreme" sounded like something that had been left in the hall's refrigerator since the early 80s. I didn't even try the doughnuts until five years later, and swayed by a friend who loved them and the convenient location in New York's Penn Station, I grew to hunger for their swift sugary rush. When I moved back to Portland at about the same time embarked on its wild expansion across the U.S., I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a little stock.

A year later everything in my portfolio was doing brilliantly with the marked exception of Krispy Kreme, which had lost roughly two-thirds of its value, closed 100 of its 400 stores, and initiated a program of franchise buybacks that is now being "informally inquired" about by the SEC. I let it sit there, soaking up the juice thrown off by winners like eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) and J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) with its nutritionally empty sweetness. It's still there, and let me tell you, I'm not planning on utilizing those 12 shares as a down payment on my retirement vacation home.

That's why when I saw Prudential had initiated with a 'Buy' and a $15 price target. My reaction was one of gaping, open mouth.