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101 Dumbest Moments in Business

The year's biggest boors, buffoons, and blunderers

But his winning lottery ticket was destroyed by lightning, so it all evens out in the end...
46. UnitedHealth Group
But his winning lottery ticket was destroyed by lightning, so it all evens out in the end...
In the midst of corporate America's scandal du jour - the backdating of stock options to enrich company executives - the Wall Street Journal discovers that William McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, received options on dates coinciding with the company's lowest share prices of 1997, 1999, and 2000.

After a company inquiry finds backdating to have been "likely" (the odds of this happening by chance are around 1 in 200 million), McGuire steps down and agrees to give up about $200 million in proceeds.

1. Wal-Mart

2. Northwest Airlines

3. McDonald's

4. General Motors

5. Kazakhstan

6. Steve Wynn

7. NY Times

8. Spirit Air

9. Porter County

10. Comcast

11. Starbucks

12. Sony

13. Safety Commission

14. Vonage

15. Wal-Mart, part 2

16. 'Anger' bar

17. Alarm One

18. Church-run nursery school

19. PBS Kids Sprout network

20. Fiji Water

21. FCC

22. BusinessWeek

23. Microsoft

24. B2/Raytheon CEO

25. BBC

26. Greyhound

27. Radio Shack

28. National Semi

29. Hyundai-Kia

30. Lone Star

31. Goldman Sachs

32. Trading-Markets

33. Heart Attack Grill

34. Museum of Contemp. Art

35. Wal-Mart, Part 3

36. Catawba County

37. Thomsonfly

38. Imelda Marcos

39. Greece

40. Natural Selection Foods

41. Home Depot CEO Nardelli

42. MBA candidates

43. Paris Hilton

44. Mayor of New Lenox, Ill.

45. Cryonics pioneers

46. UnitedHealth Group

47. Comverse Technology

48. Cablevision Systems

49. EnBW - German utility

50. British food processor

51. Honda

52. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison

53. Disney

54. Wal-Mart, part 4

55. Richard Hatch

56. AOL

57. AOL, part 2

58. YouTube

59. Golden State Warriors

60. Egokast.com

61. Microsoft

62. DDS Media

63. TextTrust

64. Powys County Council in Wales

65. CIA

66. Jessica Simpson

67. Sony

68. Hewlett-Packard

69. Royal Mail

70. KRON 4

71. Bausch & Lomb

72. Amazon.com

73. Wal-Mart, Part 5

74. Pearson Educational Measurement

75. Time Warner's Wayne Pace

76. AirTran

77. Bank of America

78. McCain Foods

79. Mercedes-Benz

80. News Corp.

81. McDonald's

82. Online-video fans

83. Taco Bell

84. Shai

85. U.S. Mint

86. Wal-Mart, Part 6

87. AussieBum

88. Mars

89. Hoboken, N.J.

90. Bristol-Myers Squibb

91. Crackheadz Gone Wild: New York

92. Michael Eisner

93. Stefan Eriksson

94. Greenville Drive

95. NTT

96. UCLA

97. Home Depot

98. Imagination 69

99. Tesco

100. Spin Master

101. Hasbro
The complete 101 See the video, test your Dumbest knowledge, and check out our 'Sex, drugs, and celebrities' gallery. (more)
Where Wal-Mart went wrong The world's largest retailer set out to clean up its image in '06 - and promptly landed six spots on this year's list. (more)
Business...It's 'Dumbtastic!' Business 2.0, with the help of a few comedians, highlights the doozies in customer service and HR screw-ups. (more) video
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