Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room:
The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Thu May 25, 2006 16:30

 
Enron Fallout
http://www.dyncorp-sucks.com/enron.htm

Enron (NYSE:ENE) Sued In Class Action Suit
on Behalf of Employees and Former Employees
http://www.enronerisa.com/news/news112101-3.html

Enron Oil & Gas names President
and CEO and board-members
http://www.apfn.org/enron/CEO.htm

Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service
http://www.apfn.org/enron/prize.htm

Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough State Department Questioned Deal With Firm Linked to Russian Mob
http://www.apfn.org/enron/halliburton.htm

WHO PROFITS FROM A LONG WAR?
FLASHBACK: Halliburton Profits from War Without End 2/24
http://www.halliburton.com/KBR/KBRNWS/KBRNWS_121701.asp

Dick Cheney's Halliburton Also Profits from the Permanent War 2/23
http://www.southernstudies.org/issmain.shtml#Commentary1

United Defense gets $1.8 billion Army contract
WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - United Defense LP, a unit of United Defense Industries Inc. (NYSE:UDI - news), has been awarded a $1.8 billon contract for further development of the Army's next-generation self-propelled Crusader artillery system, the service said Friday.

The award, which had been expected based on a sole-source contract initiated in July 1994, calls for work to be completed by April 30, 2003. The Pentagon projects Crusader purchases rising to $1 billion by 2007.

United Defense's largest backer is Carlyle Group Inc., an investment firm whose chairman is Frank Carlucci, a secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.

The Army ultimately plans to spend $11.1 billion developing, buying and supporting 480 Crusaders -- a 155mm howitzer operated by a three-person crew that will operate with another three-person vehicle carrying spare shells and fuel.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020201/n01166761_1.html
----

HOW TO CREATE A PHONY POWER CRISIS: THE BUSH-ENRON CONNECTION
http://www.apfn.org/enron/phoney.htm

Enron as "Bush’s Whitewater"; And "Worse" Than Whitewater; To CNN,
Arafat is the Victim; Kinsley Insulted Goldberg as "Dense"

http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2002/cyb20020111.asp

Henry A. Waxman | GAO v. Cheney
"Everyone in our government--even the Vice President--should be
accountable to the American people..."
http://www.truthout.com/02.24B.Waxman.Responds.htm

"THE ENRON BLACK MAGIC, PART ONE"
by Sherman H. Skolnick 12/02/01
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/tebm1.html

Connect the Enron Dots to Bush
by Robert Scheer
http://www.zmag.org/scheerenron.htm

THE STORY OF ENRON - Sightings from The Catbird Seat.
http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/ENRON.htm

The Roots of the Bush-Cheney's Oil Government
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/bush-cheney.htm

Enron sends California garbage
March 20, 2002, 11:16PM
Reuters News Service

WASHINGTON -- California prosecutors say that when they pried open 940 boxes of documents subpoenaed from bankrupt energy giant Enron Corp., they made a surprising discovery.
"What we found were discarded Kleenexes, old pizza boxes, garbage," California Attorney General Bill Lockyer told reporters.
On March 11, Lockyer said he and a team of lawyers arrived at the offices of Enron's utility subsidiary in Portland, Ore. Lockyer expected to find subpoenaed documents related to Enron's California electricity sales.
A California judge will rule next week on whether Enron should be held in contempt for its action, he said.
From the 940 boxes, "we got one piece of paper, one document, in response to our subpoena," Lockyer said.
Enron has incensed California politicians by ignoring a subpoena and failing to appear last month at a state Senate panel hearing on document destruction. Lockyer won a court order in January requiring Enron to preserve all paper and electronic documents subpoenaed by state officials.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/enron/1302654

Enron's in-house "Code of Ethics."

The 64-page booklet was distributed to employees along with an introductory letter from Chairman Kenneth Lay noting the "moral and honest manner" in which the energy firm's business affairs should be conducted. Below you'll find some selected pages from the guide, which was aggressively ignored by many of the Texas skells who drove the firm--and its workers--into the ground. (6 pages)
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/enron/enronethics1.shtml

ENRON: THE ANATOMY OF A COVER-UP
A FORMER REPUBLICAN INSIDER TALKS
By: Catherine Fitts
http://www.customscorruption.com/enron.htm

The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

 http://www.apfn.org/enron/scandalous.htm

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room:
Sun Jun 19, 2005 22:45

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Documentary
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/23/124923.php

Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Peter Elkind
Book from Portfolio Hardcover
Release date: 13 October, 2003

In this worth-seeing documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room, cliches and metaphors are bandied about like candy. The Emperor Has No Clothes. Turning Hay into Gold. Jeff Skilling used Andy Fastow like Kathleen Turner used William Hurt in Body Heat. These phrases would be comical if they weren't so darn apt.

I finally dragged my husband and some friends to see the Enron documentary. Overall, I thought it told the story the best way that it could be told. (As I've mentioned on my blog Conglomerate, I practiced law and was a law professor in Houston from 1994-2003, and Enron was my client in 1997-98). Instead of focusing on the structured finance vehicles and conflicts of interest that merely covered up losses, the documentary begins by looking at the culture and personality of the company that may have resulted in the losses themselves. The interesting part of the Enron story that makes it different from every other accounting fraud story is the risk-taking culture there that resulted in such hubris-filled business risks that backfired, such as (my project) the Dabhol, India power plant, the Azurix water plant, and the dreams of broadband. The documentary begins by examining that personality that enabled Enron to create markets and industries that did not exist beforehand but that would ultimately be its downfall.

If you are an expert on any piece of the puzzle, you will be able to criticize that piece of the puzzle in the documentary. For example, the documentary describes "mark-to-market" accounting in about 3 sentences, so of course, the description is not entirely apt. Of course, the movie could have tried to describe mark-to-market in 300 sentences, but then everyone would walk out of the movie. When the narrator tells the audience that Merrill-Lynch bought a barge from Enron, the audience chuckles because what would ML need a barge for? But, in 1999, many financial firms were buying assets, but that detail is omitted. The documentary describes the California power crisis and details how Enron called "the Power Plant" (words on the screen) to tell it to shut down in order to increase demand for electricity. But, the documentary does not mention that Enron did not own that power plant (or any in California) and does not mention the big power company that did.


Many people come off easy in the documentary. Gray Davis, for instance, and the California legislature that created such a stupid PX system. Vinson & Elkins and Arthur Andersen are named a couple of times, but no individual is named and there is no footage of their buildings or logos. No Enron director is named. The documentary focuses on Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and to some extent, Andy Fastow. Lea Fastow's name is never mentioned, nor is her picture shown.

The movie relies heavily on taped conversations of power traders and on emails, taped employee meetings, and taped investor conference calls. Of course, some of the statements are shocking to hear now. Part of that reason is that not everyone, and certainly few of the rank-and-file people, knew the entire picture and that what they were doing was illegal. The power traders, for instance, were following the rules of the California power exchange. If you had asked them whether they were manipulating the market, they would have said, "Of course. That's my job." The line between legal manipulation and illegal manipulation is very unclear, which probably explains why all the federal indictments for manipulating the power market during that time have languished for years.

The most interesting footage in the documentary was of Sherron Watkins testifying in front of Congress. I never picked up on this, but she had to sit at the same table as Jeff Skilling, with only Skilling's lawyer in between them. So, Watkins would say that Skilling knew about something, then two people down, Skilling would call her a liar. That kind of whistleblowing takes a lot of bravery, I think.
 


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