Enron

Has anyone seen "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"? I knew these guys were bastards, but it's far worse than I thought. Enron wasn't a case of cutting accounting corners, or anything so innocent. EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS COMPANY WAS GARBAGE, so much garbage that Arthur Anderson shredded literally one ton of documents related to Enron ahead of the investigation.

In one interesting instance, Enron devised a scheme to export energy out of California in order to create shortages. These shortages create the conditions for increased energy prices just in time for Enron to sell the energy back into the state at unbelievable markups. If that wasn't good enough, Enron decided to start taking down power plants in California to manipulate energy prices. Profits associated with this program reached the 30 billion dollar range. If you remember, the ensuing energy crises, and the associated fiscal crisis, were at the root of that poor bastard Gray Davis's undoing. Let me throw out a little c-o-n-spiracy, and suggest that Enron's Republican allies, such as G.W., looked the other way on this little experiment, knowing that there were electoral fringe benefits involved. Crazy? Maybe. The film suggests just that, and I have to say it did occur to me during the whole Schwarzenager circus.

In any event, I recommend you watch this film for your own edification.