Want to make money but you don't really know how? Not small amounts of money, enough to get you through to the next pay packet or student allowance. Really big amounts of money, enough to impress the stock market. In the internet world some problems are harder than others. In this case there are easier ways to make a profit than actually making a profit, and the easiest way of all is through creative bookkeeping.

That may sound immoral, or at least illegal. According to one myth of capitalism, we live in a society in which those with money worked hard to earn it. That is so obviously not true of internet millionaires that a new myth has been created, that the dotcom millionaires had "initiative". They may not have worked much at all, but because their initiative created great wealth for many people, they deserve a little of the wealth themselves.

Today, as gullible investors watch their internet share prices disappear into a black hole, those internet entrepreneurs who were smart enough to cash in their millions are no longer the pin-up stars of the daily media. Meanwhile those still trying to salvage some of their millions are looking to their accountancy practices to help them out.

A case in point is Lucent, a giant telecommunications company (at one point one of the most highly valued companies in the world) with decades of technology experience behind it.

Mentioned previously in this column, Lucent is a front runner in the race for largest information technology company to fail this year.

column = Lucent blotted its record last November (and lost lots of money) when it admitted overstating its earnings by wrongly booking sales. This can be done in a few ways, but the simplest is the illegal practice of announcing future orders, or orders for future services as actual income. This is one of a number of practices described by the UK Auditing Practices Board as "aggressive earnings management."

Capitalist institutions such as the stock exchanges have no concern if a company cheats, lies and kills customers. However, they draw the line at companies that lie to their investors, other capitalists. Ironically, Lucent may have been a victim as well as a perpetrator.

All of Australia no doubt shed a tear when they heard that the financial collapse of One.Tel could cost News Corp $500 million and the Packer family $400 million. Key investors Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer along with founders Jodee Rich and Bradley Keeling had represented the bright and happy face of young Australian capitalism. (Since their dads own most of Australia's media it is not a surprise.)

The two heirs are now torn between claiming they didn't know what was going on with their investment, and wanting to look credible in their next corporate venture.

The biggest single creditor for One.Tel is ... Lucent!

Just as the world's major auction houses artificially boost the value of works of art by lending money to wealthy bidders, Lucent and other IT companies have been boosting the state of the new economy by lending money to companies to buy IT infrastructure (Cisco is another major player in this game).

One.Tel apparently misled Lucent. Lucent misled its stockholders. The justice of the situation is lost on other capitalists who watch the whole new economy swaying dangerously.

BY GREG HARRIS (gregharris_greenleft@hotmail.com)