"Ask why" was Enron's enormously ironic marketing slogan for many years preceding its collapse, even as company officials ignored, shut out, and denigrated the few analysts, reporters, and employees who paused to ask why and how exactly the company was making money claimed in its earnings reports.
The film will make you shake your head at the gall of Enron, from its self-assured, overly confident executives to the merciless conduct of the energy traders bred within the company's cut-throat culture.
The film discusses the casualties of the Enron fallout, from its employees, its stockholders, retirees who held Enron shares, the entire state of California and Gov. Gray Davis himself.
The film provides a scathing criticism of capitalism unleashed, an aspect that I believe is most overlooked in the wake of Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco. The film, as did most media reports, focused on the personal conduct of the key players, the high-power executives now mired in civil and criminal proceedings: CEO Jeffrey Skilling, CEO Kenneth Lay (now deceased), and CFO Andrew Fastow.
While the conceit and deceit of these executives cannot be over-stated, so much emphasis on their individual culpability distracts from the overall culture of communal greed and reckless hype that saturated all of society during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In the film, Sherron Watkins, a former Enron VP considered by some to be a whistleblower, commented: "Enron should not be viewed as an aberration, something that can't happen somewhere else . . . It can happen again."
Right now, we still live in the shadow of Enron, with heavy-handed oversight and finger-wagging politicians. The real challenge will be 10 or 20 years from now, when the country is experiencing its next major economic boom. Will analysts do their job and demand to see proper balance sheets? Will regulators turn a blind eye to questionable accounting practices? Will shareholders even care that puppetmasters may be manipulating the skyrocketing numbers?
Will ANYONE care so long as gobs of money are being made, until its too late? We humans have a very short memory, and history tends to repeat itself.
I would rate the documentary higher, except that I found much of the inserted pop-culture clips to be unnecessary, distracting, and gratuitous (five minutes of strippers?).
The film will make you shake your head at the gall of Enron, from its self-assured, overly confident executives to the merciless conduct of the energy traders bred within the company's cut-throat culture.
The film discusses the casualties of the Enron fallout, from its employees, its stockholders, retirees who held Enron shares, the entire state of California and Gov. Gray Davis himself.
The film provides a scathing criticism of capitalism unleashed, an aspect that I believe is most overlooked in the wake of Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco. The film, as did most media reports, focused on the personal conduct of the key players, the high-power executives now mired in civil and criminal proceedings: CEO Jeffrey Skilling, CEO Kenneth Lay (now deceased), and CFO Andrew Fastow.
While the conceit and deceit of these executives cannot be over-stated, so much emphasis on their individual culpability distracts from the overall culture of communal greed and reckless hype that saturated all of society during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In the film, Sherron Watkins, a former Enron VP considered by some to be a whistleblower, commented: "Enron should not be viewed as an aberration, something that can't happen somewhere else . . . It can happen again."
Right now, we still live in the shadow of Enron, with heavy-handed oversight and finger-wagging politicians. The real challenge will be 10 or 20 years from now, when the country is experiencing its next major economic boom. Will analysts do their job and demand to see proper balance sheets? Will regulators turn a blind eye to questionable accounting practices? Will shareholders even care that puppetmasters may be manipulating the skyrocketing numbers?
Will ANYONE care so long as gobs of money are being made, until its too late? We humans have a very short memory, and history tends to repeat itself.
I would rate the documentary higher, except that I found much of the inserted pop-culture clips to be unnecessary, distracting, and gratuitous (five minutes of strippers?).