![]() ![]() I have no understanding of a reliable accounting firm allowing such a thing. Probably my favorite part was the mark to market accounting system employed by Enron and signed off on by Arthur Andersen. They won't give you a mortgage, but they'll pay a fortune to a dummy corporation. That was a little complicated, but you'd think someone would have realized that the CFO of Enron running companies that were supposedly selling to Enron was a conflict of interest. The only part I didn't quite get were these dummy corporations that Flatow started up to hide Enron's losses which were then invested in by the banks. This is a great documentary even if you don't understand business. Let's hope that's what Ken Lay is doing right now. When one of the California power companies called Enron and said there was a fire in the plant, the trader chuckled and said, "Burn, baby, burn." That sums up Enron's, the banks, the traders', and Arthur Andersen's attitude toward the common man - burn, baby, burn. ![]() It's hard to say what boggles the mind most: the complicity of Arthur Andersen, the banks, and the traders in this elaborate scheme of making a failing company look profitable the fact that the executives cashed out their stock at high prices and froze the employees' stock accessibility until it was worth nothing the derisive laughter of the traders over the Enron-caused blackouts in California ("let them fall into the ocean - let them use candles) that Lu Pi, a guy who ran a failing Enron company, left that company with $250 million in his pocket or the fact that Ken Lay died before they could convict him of anything. And this one is scarier because it's real. I agree with previous posts: "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" is right up there with the biggest horror films of our time. ![]() Reviewed by blanche-2 8 / 10 I hope Ken Lay is somewhere hot Along the way, we watch Enron game California's deregulated electricity market, get a free pass from Arthur Andersen (which okays the dubious mark-to-market accounting), use greed to manipulate banks and brokerages (Merrill Lynch fires the analyst who questions Enron's rise), and hear from both Presidents Bush what great guys these are. The emphasis is on human drama, from suicide to 20,000 people sacked: the personalities of Ken Lay (with Falwellesque rectitude), Jeff Skilling (he of big ideas), Lou Pai (gone with $250 M), and Andy Fastow (the dark prince) dominate. Enron dives from the seventh largest US company to bankruptcy in less than a year in this tale told chronologically. ![]()
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